SUP law to be amended - EC urges Poland to address shortcomings
18 June 2025. The European Commission announced the opening of proceedings against Poland for incorrect transposition of the SUP Directive. At the same time, Poland was requested to respond and remedy the deficiencies within 2 months. What do these shortcomings relate to?
Limited scope of entities and inadequate calculation of fees are the main objections of the EC against the Polish SUP Act
In its letter of formal notice to Poland, the European Commission points to 2 key deficiencies that prejudge the non-compliance of the national law with the EU SUP Directive:
- Flawed definition of "producer"
The definition of 'producer' contained in the Polish Act of 14 April 2023 amending the Act on the obligations of entrepreneurs with regard to the management of certain waste and on the product fee, as well as some other acts, does not cover all activities performed by entities producing and marketing single-use products. As a consequence, the scope of application of the provisions on single-use plastic products is limited - not all entities that should fulfil producer obligations under the SUP Directive have been obliged to do so in the Polish act.
- Incomplete implementation of ROP for single-use plastic products
As the EC argues, the Polish legislation issued to transpose the SUP Directive does not ensure that waste generators properly calculate and bear all the costs of managing waste from single-use plastic products under extended producer responsibility schemes.
2 months to respond and remedy deficiencies
The failure to correctly transpose the directive on single-use plastic products (Directive (EU) 2019/904) gave rise to a letter of formal notice from the Commission. Poland has since had two months to respond and remedy the shortcomings identified by the Commission.
In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.
This is not the first indication that the SUP Directive has not been correctly transposed
The June letter of formal notice is already another EC appeal to Poland in relation to the (non-)implementation of the provisions of the SUP Directive. As a reminder, the directive obliged all member states to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to implement the directive by 3 July 2021. The Polish SUP Act was not adopted until 14 April 2023. and came into force on 24 May 2023. For almost 2 years the Commission has been urging Poland to implement the provisions of the. Now the situation is repeating itself - although this time it is not the entire directive but only selected provisions, including the ROP provisions for selected single-use plastic products.
In accordance with the provisions of SUP, Member States had until 31 December 2024 to establish an extended producer responsibility scheme covering selected single-use plastic products. (for ROP systems established before 4 July 2018 and for tobacco products with filters and filters sold for use with tobacco products - until 5 January 2023). For the time being, this system is not functioning in Poland.
Read also: The SUP Directive, a half-whistle revolution - new Interzero report.
Source:
- Infringement proceedings: main decisions taken in June, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/inf_25_1241