The Council today adopted a new regulation that strengthens sustainability rules for batteries and waste batteries. For the first time EU law will regulate the entire life cycle of a battery – from production to reuse and recycling – and ensure that batteries are safe, sustainable and competitive.
With 587 votes in favour, nine against and 20 abstentions, MEPs endorsed a deal reached with the Council to overhaul EU rules on batteries and waste batteries. The new law takes into account technological developments and future challenges in the sector and will cover the entire battery life cycle, from design to end-of-life.
84 Overall, we conclude that the Commission’s promotion of an EU industrial policy on batteries has been effective, despite shortcomings on monitoring, coordination and targeting, as well as the fact that access to raw materials remains a major strategic challenge for the EU’s battery value chain.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE REGULATION? It aims to ensure that, in the future, batteries have a low carbon footprint, use minimal harmful substances, need fewer raw materials from non- European Union (EU) countries and are collected, reused and recycled to a high degree within the EU.
By 2031, the Commission expects these projects to generate total investments worth €14 billion. Technological and Innovation Platform on Batteries (2018), which, among others, developed a new technological roadmap for European R&I work on batteries. 38 Proposal for a regulation concerning batteries and waste batteries, COM(2020) 798.
Since 2006, batteries and waste batteries have been regulated at EU level under the Batteries Directive. The Commission proposed to revise this Directive in December 2020 due to new socioeconomic conditions, technological developments, markets, and battery uses. Demand for batteries is increasing rapidly.