Slovakia’s Environment Ministry should abandon legislative plans that could jeopardise the country’s highly successful Deposit Return System (DRS), which serves as a model for other EU countries, nine beverage packaging companies, including EUROPEN, the Brewers of Europe and Zero Waste Europe, have said in a joint letter.
In the letter, the companies voiced “strong concerns” about the proposed amendments to the Slovak legislation on the DRS for single-use beverage packaging, submitted by the Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba (for SNS) in August.
The changes would not only undermine the system but also violate “a number of principles established in Slovak and EU legislation,” the letter said, calling on the Ministry to withdraw its draft amendments.
“The Slovak system is clearly one of the leading examples of a well-organised DRS and serves as an inspiration for many other European countries which are preparing to establish their own DRS,” signatories stressed.
Proposed changes to the Backup Act would increase state control over the system, with the Ministry arguing that the current DRS administrator was mismanaging the programme, failing to meet binding targets and potentially putting Slovakia at risk of future EU sanctions.
But the European organisations have a different view of the situation.
According to them, Slovakia has not only improved the collection and recycling of single-use drink packaging and reduced litter since the system was introduced in 2022 but has also exceeded the EU’s mandatory targets.
In particular, Slovakia reached a collection rate of over 90% of beverage packaging in 2023, years ahead of the EU targets of 77% of packaging by 2025 and 90% by 2029, as required by the EU’s Single-use Plastics Directive.
In a response to Euractiv Slovakia, the Environment Ministry reiterated Slovakia’s right as a member state to adapt its system to national needs and rejected what it called “lobbyist interference”.
“The payment system has been used to drive Slovak producers out of business by preventing them from obtaining recycling codes and thus legally selling their products,” the response said, calling the current mechanism a “scandal”.
It also claimed a responsibility to make the system transparent, as citizens are “forced to pay significant amounts to a few private companies through this legally enforced monopoly”.
However, according to the organisations behind the letter, the proposed changes contradict a number of legislative principles, in particular, the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the minimum requirements for DRS.
Instead, they called for constructive dialogue with industry representatives and the DRS administrator to address concerns without disrupting the system. The Slovak DRS administrator acknowledged the letter and expressed hope for cooperation with the ministry.
The proposed amendment has also been criticised by the Slovak Chamber of Agriculture and Food (SPPK), opposition parties and even the Finance Ministry.
The SPPK has called it “unconstitutional” and in breach of EU law, while the Finance Ministry has argued that it will increase fees and that the Environment Ministry’s justification is inadequate.
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