As the Bundestag reports, the first reading of the federal government's draft law to adapt packaging law to Regulation (EU) 2025/40 is on the agenda for Friday, 24 April 2026. The debate is scheduled for 30 minutes. Afterwards, the draft is to be referred to the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection for further deliberation.
According to the Bundestag, the EU Packaging Regulation entered into force on 11 February 2025 and will generally apply in all member states from 12 August 2026. Against this background, national regulations must be adapted. For this purpose, the previous Packaging Act is to be repealed and replaced by the new Packaging Law Implementation Act.
The Bundestag states that the federal government notes in its proposal that the far-reaching innovations in the packaging sector brought about by the EU Packaging Regulation place the framework conditions for the management of packaging and packaging waste on a new basis. This necessitates a complete revision of the previous national Packaging Act. This is also necessary to eliminate contradictions between the previous national regulations of the Packaging Act and the directly applicable legal provisions of the EU Packaging Regulation.
As the Bundestag informs, the national implementation of the European requirements and an effective enforcement framework in this law are intended to ensure that those affected comply with their obligations. This could enable the environmental policy targets according to Article 1 of the EU Packaging Regulation to be achieved in Germany. The debate thus marks an important step towards harmonising German law with the EU requirements, which will become binding from summer 2026.
