Official Journal of the European Union

C series

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C/2025/3305

(Case T-243/25)

(C/2025/3305)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: Silver-Plastics GmbH & Co. KG (Troisdorf, Germany) (represented by: R. van der Hout, C. Wagner, V. Lemonnier and S. Walter, lawyers)

Defendants: European Parliament, Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul the PPWR (<span class="oj-super oj-note-tag">1</span>) in its entirety;

—in the alternative, annul Article 7(5)(b) of the PPWR;

—in the alternative, annul Article 7(1) and (2) of the PPWR;

—order the defendants to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law.

Article 7 of the PPWR is in breach of the principle of equal treatment on account of the exception in Article 7(5)(b) of the PPWR, in that manufacturers and suppliers of packaging the plastic part of which is at least 5 %, are placed at a disadvantage in comparison with manufacturers and suppliers of packaging the plastic part of which is less than 5 % of the total weight of the whole packaging unit.

Article 7(5)(b) of the PPWR infringes Article 11 TFEU and Article 37 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, (<span class="oj-super oj-note-tag">2</span>) in that it creates an exception for packaging that is non-recyclable or difficult to recycle and that contains a low amount of plastic. That exception runs counter to the requirements and aims of environmental protection, and is not justified.

The legislature based the PPWR, Article 7 thereof in particular, on an incorrect legal basis, in that it relied on a competence relating to the internal market (Article 114 TFEU), rather than on the legal basis relating to the environment policy (Article 192 TFEU), even though the regulation, Article 7 thereof in particular, has an obvious focus on environment policy.

Article 7(5)(b) infringes the duty to state reasons under the second paragraph of Article 296 TFEU, as the PPWR and its <span class="oj-italic">travaux préparatoires</span> do not contain reasons for the exception, even though it is of significant importance and runs counter to the normative objectives of the PPWR.

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Regulation (EU) 2025/40 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 2024 on packaging and packaging waste, amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and Directive (EU) 2019/904, and repealing Directive 94/62/EC (OJ L 2025/40) (the packaging and packaging waste regulation; ‘the PPWR’).

OJ 2012 C 326, p. 391.

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ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3305/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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