On 16 December 2024 the Council of the European Union formally adopted the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, marking the final step in the ordinary legislative procedure. All but two member states voted in favour, with Austria and Malta abstaining. The European Parliament had already approved the agreed text following lawyer-linguist revision of the March 2024 trilogue deal.
The regulation was signed by the Council and Parliament on 19 December 2024 and published as Regulation (EU) 2025/40 in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025. It replaces Directive 94/62/EC and amends related product-safety and single-use plastics legislation, creating a harmonised EU framework covering the full packaging life cycle from design through end-of-life.
Core obligations include design-for-recycling requirements, recycled-content targets for plastic packaging, restrictions on certain single-use formats, reuse targets where infrastructure exists, and packaging waste reduction measured against 2018 baselines. Extended producer responsibility fees may be modulated based on recyclability performance—a direct commercial incentive for converters to simplify laminate structures.
Flexible packaging stakeholders noted that the final text preserved transition periods and SME exemptions in several articles, but the direction was unambiguous: packaging placed on the EU market must become less wasteful and more recyclable. Converters exporting from Asia into EU supply chains began mapping which customer SKUs required redesign before the general application date.
Entry into force followed twenty days after Official Journal publication—11 February 2025—with most provisions applying from 12 August 2026 after an 18-month transition. The December adoption gave converters and machinery suppliers a fixed calendar for compliance planning, recyclability documentation, and line scoping decisions through drupa 2028 and beyond.