Conai presents itself in Brussels without hesitation: ours is a model to be copied

Brussels -A successful example from Italy that should become a model for the rest of Europe: this is the message from an event that Conai, the National Packaging Consortium, organized yesterday at the European Parliament that saw the participation of companies, MEPs, the European Commission, and other key sector players.
Packaging and the circular economy could be crucial for decarbonization at a low cost while also creating wealth. The message that emerged for the European Commission is to consider this in the ‘Clean Industry Plan’ that should see the light of day at the end of February.

The round table organized by Conai and moderated by our editor Lorenzo Robustelli, brought together a large, cross-party group of Italian MEPs, from the meeting’s organizer Elena Donazzan (FdI) to Dem MEPs Annalisa Corrado and Camilla Laureti, then Forza Italia’s Massimiliano Salini and conservatives Pietro Fiocchi, Nicola Procaccini, Alessandro Ciriani, and Michele Picaro. French RN Virginie Joron and Spanish PP Pablo Arias Echeverria also attended.

In Brussels, Conai brings the experience of a consortium model that has balanced economic development and environmental efforts, with Italy leading the way in the “circular economy, with 18 percent of materials” coming from “recycled” economic sectors, President Ignazio Capuano stressed. In Europe, it is ‘second’ only to the Netherlands.

A system of close cooperation with local governments that contributes 1.9 billion euros to Italian GDP, with a turnover of more than 3 billion euros a year. From Capuano, the request to institutions to “broaden” the principle of the “circular economy and bring in other systems and other materials.”

An intervention from Brussels could come through the future ‘Circular Economy Act’ under the responsibility of Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall. A legislative ‘act’ on which the EU executive is already “gathering possible ideas and developing solutions,” and which will take its cue from the “Draghi report and the Antwerp Declaration for the development of the circular economy as a lever of competitiveness,” confirmed Vincenzo Gente, from the European Commission’s Environment Directorate General. Italian MEPs — from Donazzan to Salini — who, on the divisive packaging regulation, have been cooperating in Brussels in negotiations to enhance the role of recycling, on which Italy has solid experience — agree that there should not just be an ideological approach.