On 22^nd January 2025, the European Commission published in the Official Journal of the European Union Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste, amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and Directive (EU) 2019/904 and repealing Directive 94/62/EC.

Products need appropriate packaging to protect them and make them easily transportable from where they are produced to where they are used or consumed. However, 40 % of plastics and 50 % of paper used in the European Union are used for packaging, representing 36 % of municipal solid waste.

This Regulation should, therefore, establish rules covering the entire lifecycle of packaging. By harmonising national measures, it should contribute to the efficient functioning of the internal market while preventing and reducing the adverse impacts of packaging and packaging waste on the environment and human health.

This new Regulation includes conformity assessment to provide a ‘presumption of conformity’ for packaging. It does not include third-party conformity assessment (by notified bodies) but internal production control, which is the conformity assessment procedure whereby the manufacturer fulfils the obligations laid down in the Regulation.

Where test, measurement or calculation methods are performed – for the purposes of compliance and verification of compliance of packaging – by conformity assessment bodies under accreditation in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 765/2008, it shall provide the presumption of conformity with the requirements set out in the relevant articles of the Regulation.

The link to the Regulation: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/40/oj/eng