Anikó Raisz: the goal is not to ban plastics, but to promote their safe and sustainable use

The State Secretary called it an important result that, under the Hungarian EU presidency, the Council adopted its position on Tuesday on the regulation on preventing the release of plastic pellets – an industrial raw material used to produce plastic products – into the environment.

“This is a significant step, because the Council was thus able to develop a unified position in the fight against microplastics and plastic pollution,” she emphasized.

According to Anikó Raisz, this result is particularly important, since the UN recently tried unsuccessfully to bring together a global convention against plastic pollution.

These negotiations will continue in the future, but the EU has its own agenda on this and wants to keep these targets, given the serious environmental and health impacts of plastic pollution, which particularly affect the youngest generations

, he added.

He said that member states agreed on the targets, but there was a dispute on the issue of maritime transport. In the end, a compromise was reached that was also acceptable to the states involved in maritime transport.

EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall welcomed the fact that the large majority of member states had adopted a common approach on plastic pellets.