Council Agrees Negotiating Stance on Packaging Rules Simplification for Small Producers

On 21 October 2026 the Council of the European Union agreed its negotiating position on the EU packaging regulation simplification file — a proposal to suspend certain extended producer responsibility (EPR) obligations under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) for small producers. The measure targets the requirement that EU-established packaging producers appoint a representative in every member state where they place packaging or packaged products on the market. The Council's stance does not change the law today; it opens trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament.

The PPWR builds EPR into a single EU regulation, and EPR is administered nationally. That combination produces a structural problem for cross-border sellers: a producer established in one member state that places packaging on the market of another must register and comply in that second market, and under the PPWR appoint a representative there.

For a producer shipping a few pallets of packaged goods into three or four member states, the cost of appointing and maintaining authorised representatives — plus national registration and reporting — is disproportionate to the volume of packaging actually placed on those markets. The Council's communication of 21 October 2026 identifies precisely this: rules requiring packaging producers established in the EU to appoint a representative in each member state where they place packaging on the market (Council of the EU, 21 October 2026).

This file sits inside the Council's broader simplification workstream, tracked on the Council's own simplification policy page, which lists the 21 October 2026 press release among its outputs (Simplification of EU rules, Consilium).

The Council agreed a negotiating position on a proposal for a regulation suspending extended producer responsibility requirements under the PPWR. That is the operative description used in the Council's press release of 21 October 2026 (Council of the EU).

Three points follow directly from the official communication. First, the instrument is a suspension, not a repeal — the underlying PPWR obligation remains in the statute book and would be disapplied for a defined period and a defined population of producers. Second, the targeted obligation is the authorised representative appointment in each member state of placement. Third, the Council has only agreed a negotiating mandate; the legislative procedure is not complete and no obligation has yet changed for any producer.

The following parameters appear in republished versions of the Council's 21 October 2026 press release and in trade reporting of it. They are consistent with one another but I have not been able to verify them against the official Council text or the Council's mandate document, and they should be treated as unverified pending publication of the mandate:

A one-tonne annual threshold, assessed per producer, per calendar year, for packaging placed on the market of another individual member state — not an aggregate EU-wide or export-wide threshold. A safeguard clause applying where a producer breaches EPR requirements. A Commission review of the duration of the suspension by the end of 2030, ahead of a proposed expiry in 2032. And placement of the file within the Commission's Omnibus VIII simplification package, described as making targeted changes to six legislative acts arranged under four components, with related Coreper mandates agreed on 30 September 2026 (faster environmental assessments) and 24 June 2026 (simplification and administrative burden measures, and the INSPIRE directive component).

If your compliance planning depends on the one-tonne figure, do not commit to it until the consolidated Council mandate or the provisional trilogue agreement is published.

The affected obligation is the PPWR provision requiring producers established in the EU to appoint a representative for EPR purposes in each member state where they place packaging or packaged products on the market. The Council's negotiating position concerns a separate, freestanding regulation that would suspend that requirement for qualifying producers — it is not a recast of the PPWR itself.

The sources available here do not reproduce the PPWR article number, the Official Journal citation, or the recitals of the suspending proposal. Verify the article reference directly against the consolidated PPWR text on EUR-Lex before citing it in internal documentation. I am not going to supply an article number I cannot source.

No change to packaging labelling obligations is identified in the Council's 21 October 2026 press release. The file as described is confined to extended producer responsibility — specifically the authorised representative appointment duty. Any reading that the EU packaging simplification package relaxes PPWR marking, material identification or sorting-label requirements is not supported by the official communication. Treat PPWR labelling obligations as unchanged and on their existing timetable.

The intended beneficiaries are EU-established producers with low-volume cross-border placement — typically SMEs and micro enterprises selling packaged goods into neighbouring member states, direct-to-consumer brands with modest cross-border order books, and private-label suppliers serving retailers in more than one market.

The relief, as described, is per destination market. A producer placing two tonnes of packaging in Germany and 0.4 tonnes in Austria would, on the reported threshold design, remain fully in scope in Germany and potentially benefit only in Austria. That matters for how you structure the assessment: this is a SKU-and-destination volume calculation, not a company-level size test.

Three groups see no change. Non-EU producers are outside the described scope, which addresses producers established in the EU. Producers above the threshold in a given member state keep every existing obligation there. And national EPR registration, fee payment and reporting duties that sit outside the authorised representative requirement are not stated to be suspended — the Council describes a suspension of specific EPR requirements, not of EPR as a system.

Nothing changes today. The Council has agreed a negotiating mandate only. Until a final text is adopted and applies, producers must continue to meet the packaging requirements applicable in each member state where they place packaging on the market, including authorised representative appointment, national EPR registration and packaging waste reporting.

The practical compliance task in the current phase is data readiness, not deregulation. If a threshold-based exemption is adopted, the burden of demonstrating you sit below it falls on you. That requires per-member-state packaging mass data by calendar year, broken down by material, with an auditable calculation method — the same dataset you would need to defend an EPR declaration.

No application date exists yet. The sequence is: Council negotiating mandate agreed 21 October 2026 → trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament → provisional agreement → formal adoption by both co-legislators → publication in the Official Journal → entry into force and application.

The Council has stated it is ready to negotiate with the European Parliament to agree a final text. Reporting of the Council communication indicates the Irish presidency intends to open negotiations as soon as possible with the aim of a prompt agreement; that intention is reported, not an institutional deadline, and presidency ambitions on simplification files have slipped before.

On the reported parameters, the suspension would be time-limited with a Commission review by end-2030 and expiry in 2032. If that structure survives trilogue, the relief is a window, not a permanent derogation — which has a direct planning consequence: do not dismantle the authorised representative arrangements or contractual relationships you would need to reinstate in 2032.

Enforcement of existing PPWR and national EPR obligations continues unaffected during negotiations. I have no source indicating any member state has announced enforcement forbearance in anticipation of the suspension, and I would not advise assuming one.

EPR under the PPWR is implemented through national schemes, national producer registers and national reporting formats. A suspension of the EU-level authorised representative requirement does not harmonise those schemes; it removes one layer of intermediation for low-volume producers in specific destination markets.

The provided sources do not contain member-state-level detail on how individual national registers would treat a producer claiming the exemption — whether self-declaration, register notification, or evidence on request. That is a genuine gap and it is likely to be resolved only at national transposition and register-administration level after adoption.

Build the volume dataset now. For each EU member state where you place packaging, calculate total packaging mass placed on that market per calendar year, by material fraction, for the last two full years. Identify every destination market where your annual figure is under one tonne — those are your candidate markets for relief if the reported threshold is adopted. Document the calculation methodology and the source systems, because a threshold claim you cannot evidence is worse than no claim.

Map your current authorised representative contracts against that list. Identify notice periods and termination terms, and flag any contract where exit before 2032 would be costly if the suspension proves temporary. Do not terminate anything before a final text is published in the Official Journal.

Separate the obligations in your register. Authorised representative appointment, producer registration, EPR fee payment and packaging waste reporting are distinct duties. Only the first is described as suspended. Teams that treat "EPR exemption" as a single switch will under-comply on reporting.

Assign ownership of the trilogue watch. The specific items to track are the final threshold value and its measurement basis, whether micro enterprises receive any additional derogation, the drafting of the breach safeguard, and the review and expiry dates. The authoritative channel is the Council's simplification policy page and the Council and Parliament press services; national EPR scheme operators will issue practical guidance only after adoption.

For non-EU manufacturers selling into the EU: on the current description you are out of scope of this relief, because it addresses producers established in the EU. Your authorised representative obligations continue. Plan accordingly.

The next concrete milestone is the opening of trilogue negotiations between the Council and the European Parliament on the suspending regulation, which the Council indicated it is ready to begin following its 21 October 2026 mandate. The decision point that matters for your planning is the provisional agreement text — that is where the threshold value, the measurement basis and the expiry date become firm. Until then, the reported one-tonne figure, the 2030 review and the 2032 expiry remain subject to change in negotiation.

Verification note: the one-tonne threshold, the breach safeguard, the end-2030 Commission review, the 2032 expiry, the Omnibus VIII framing and the Coreper dates of 30 September 2026 and 24 June 2026 derive from republications of the Council communication rather than from the official Council text available to me. They are flagged as unverified above and should be confirmed against the Council mandate document or the final trilogue text.