Eu plastic tax to increase in 2028, new tax on waste electrical and electronic equipment (weee) introduced

Recently, the European Commission announced the proposal for the EU's long-term budget for 2028-2034 (MFF), suggesting an increase in the EU plastic tax in the "own resources" section. The tax rate on unrecovered plastic packaging waste within member states will be raised from 0.8 euros per kilogram to 1 euro.

This tax was introduced in 2021 as a direct source of revenue for the EU budget, and it is not paid by packaging producers, users, or consumers. Instead, member states are required to pay the difference between the weight of plastic packaging waste generated in a given year and the weight recycled during the same period. In addition to its financial function, this tax aims to promote recycling and reduce the production of non-recyclable plastics.

The reason for this adjustment is to link taxes to inflation. For the same reason, the committee proposed to adjust tax rates annually based on inflation, rather than making adjustments during each budget update.

According to the current tax rate of 0.8 euros per kilogram, the EU's plastic tax revenue in 2023 is nearly 7.2 billion euros, accounting for about 4% of the EU's total revenue. If the amount of unrecycled plastic remains stable, raising the tax rate to 1 euro per kilogram would increase annual revenue to over 9 billion euros.

The committee plans to adopt the same mechanism and introduce a new tax on unrecovered waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), set at 2 euros per kilogram, also adjusted annually for inflation, with an expected annual revenue of about 15 billion euros.