With the Judgment 28 March 2019 (case C-60/18), the EU Court of Justice ruled on the termination of the status of waste (End of Waste, EoW) and in particular on the criteria that legitimize it, in response to the request from a private party to ascertain the cessation of the state of refusal in the absence of specific criteria defined at Community and state level.
The Court established that Article 6, paragraph 4 of Directive 2008/98 / EC should be interpreted as follows:
– “does not preclude a national regulation […] under which, if no criterion has been defined at European Union level for the determination of the cessation of the status of waste as regards a given type of waste, the termination of this qualification depends on the existence for this type of waste of criteria of general scope established by a national legal act, and
– does not allow a holder of waste […] to require the assessment by the competent authority of the Member State of the cessation of the status of waste or by a judge of that Member State. ”
The Judgment therefore confirms the opinion of the Council of State expressed in the Judgment 28 February 2018, whereby the cessation of the status of waste can be attributed exclusively in the presence of European or national rules that establish the conditions under which the transformation from waste to product can intervene (denying, on that occasion, that the Regions could recognize the EoW).
At the same time, however, the EU ruling does not exclude the possibility for Member States to introduce a rule that leaves room for the authorization on a case-by-case basis, setting up the general criteria for using it:
“Member States may […] decide on a case-by-case basis whether certain wastes have ceased to be waste” and “Member States may provide for the possibility of decisions relating to individual cases, in particular on the basis of applications submitted by holders of the substance or of the object qualified as “waste”, but may also adopt a standard or technical regulation relating to waste of a particular category or a given type of waste. ”
Federchimica and Confindustria recognize the urgent need to restore regional authorizations on a case-by-case basis and are working to have a provision to that effect incorporated into our system.