On Thursday, Parliament adopted recommendations for the European Union’s strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, with 600 votes in favour, 17 against and 16 abstentions.
The text calls for textile products sold in the EU to be more durable, easier to reuse, repair and recycle. Throughout the supply chain, production must respect human rights, social rights and labor rights, as well as the environment and animal welfare. MEPs also want the Commission and Member States to adopt measures to put an end to fast fashion.
Specific measures to be taken into account in future EU legislation
Parliament believes that consumers should have more information to make sustainable choices. MEPs call for a ban on the destruction of unsold and returned textile products under the upcoming review of the ecodesign regulation. They want clear rules to end producer greenwashing, including through ongoing legislative work to empower consumers in the green transition and regulate environmental claims.
MEPs also want the next revision of the Waste Framework Directive to include specific separate targets for the prevention, collection, reuse and recycling of textile waste. They invite the Commission to launch without further delay the initiative aimed at preventing and minimizing releases of microplastics and microfibers into the environment.
More details are available here.
In a plenary statement on Wednesday, followed by a series of interventions from political groups, Speaker of Parliament Roberta Metsola referred to the tenth anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh, which killed 1,134 people . She recalled that this disaster had been a wake-up call for the Western world, including the EU, which has the responsibility “to bear the consequences of consumer preference for abundance and accessibility to the detriment of moderation and sustainability”.
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Rapporteur Delara Burkhardt (S&D, Germany) said: “Consumers alone cannot reform the global textile sector through their buying habits. If we let the market regulate itself, we are leaving the door open for a model of ‘fast fashion’ that exploits people and resources of the planet. The EU must legally oblige manufacturers and big fashion companies to operate in a more sustainable way. People and the planet are more important than the profits of the the textile industry. Disasters that have occurred in the past, such as the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, the growth of textile landfills in Ghana and Nepal, water pollution and microplastics in our oceans, show what happens when this principle is broken. We’ve waited long enough — it’s time to change things!”
Context
On 30 March 2022, the Commission presented the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, which addresses the whole life cycle of textile products and proposes actions to change the way we produce and consume textiles. Its objective is to implement the commitments of the Green Deal for Europe, the new action plan for the circular economy and the industrial strategy for the textile sector.
By adopting this report, Parliament is responding to citizens’ expectations for the establishment of a circular economy by promoting sustainable products and production, and for supporting the transition towards a model of sustainable and resilient growth, as expressed by the proposals 5(3), 5(9), 5(10), 5(11), 11(1) and 11(8) of the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
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