Against the backdrop of the current revision of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), CIAA recently gathered representatives from various Commission services, Member States and the European Parliament for a workshop to present a decision tool to clearly distinguish between products and waste in the food & drink sector, and to discuss strategies towards a harmonised and certain legal status for by-products in the EU.

Participants shared a broad understanding that the current lack of legal certainty for by-products and inconsistent interpretations of the definition of waste by Member States can result in an unequal treatment of economic operators and can also impede the efficient use of natural resources, if useful products are wrongly classified as waste.

Speaking on behalf of CIAA, Dr Joop Kleibeuker, Secretary General of the European Dairy Association, stressed "Industry needs long-term legal certainty for by-products, which can be directly used in economic applications and which therefore do not become waste in the first place. Such long-term legal certainty cannot be provided by a legally non-binding guidance Communication that could be changed from one year to the next. It now lies in the responsibility of the EU legislator to clarify the status of by-products under the WFD, based on the criteria developed in recent ECJ jurisprudence."

MEP Mojca Drcar Murko, ALDE shadow rapporteur on the revision of the WFD in the Parliament`s Environment Committee, who has tabled an amendment on by-products, emphasised in the meeting both the overriding objective of a high level of environmental protection and the importance of legal certainty for economically useful products, which positively contribute to resource-efficiency in the economy. Ms Drcar Murko concluded that given the current revision of the WFD, the time is now right to send a political signal for a legal clarification on the status of by-products under EU waste legislation.

Representatives of the European Commission acknowledged the need for more clarity on the legal status of by-products and pointed to their ongoing work on an interpretative guidance Communication on by-products, based on ECJ jurisprudence, as announced in the Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste.