The first time most people found out about European Union (EU) rules requiring that caps remain attached to plastic bottles was probably when they tried – and failed – to twist one off as usual.
The culprit behind this inconvenience? Distant officials in Brussels concerned about the amount of plastic waste that ends up polluting the environment.
The moderate annoyance at having to angle a bottle of water to dodge the tethered cap while taking a sip, and occasional ironic cursing of the EU while doing so, does speak to a genuine problem though.
There has always been a wide gap between the opaque way political business gets done inside the union’s institutions, the laws and regulations that emerge, and ordinary people they impact.
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This is partly because of the time it takes legislation to work its way through the EU policy grinder. The European Commission, the powerful executive that proposes laws, feels very far removed.
It’s a long road from the commission tabling an idea to a new EU regulation being written into Irish law by the Oireachtas. The end result can look very different, after the European Parliament and the national capitals have their say as well.
The filing cabinets of senior commission officials are full of forgotten reports and plans for EU-wide reforms, spiked over the years after failing to win the backing of MEPs or national governments.
Covering the EU bubble as a journalist, you constantly have to weigh up whether the latest recommendation from the commission has the legs to end up becoming law. It can be difficult to drum up interest for a change that may – or may not – come about in five years’ time.
Of course that makes it hard for the average punter to care about the political goings-on in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, or the wider EU policymaking machine, until they are confronted by some new rule that can be traced back to Brussels.
EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall gets asked about plastic bottle caps regularly when chatting to ordinary people. “My first answer: is that really your biggest problem?,” she says.
The amount of plastic pollution on beaches and rivers was a huge issue in Europe, she says. The Swedish politician usually follows up by asking people if they’ve seen images of fish maimed or killed by disposable plastic waste. “Then people understand,” she says.
Trying to reduce the level of harmful plastic rubbish damaging wildlife and the environment was something most people agreed on, the commissioner says.
The EU regulations on disposable plastic came into force last year, but many drinks manufacturers had switched to the new tethered caps ahead of time.
The bottle cap bugbear is a decent example of how the EU political system tends to fall down on the communications front. “I would say that as a policymaker, we all need to be better [at] explaining why we are doing things,” the environment commissioner says.
I met Roswall in her Berlaymont office last week, initially to discuss the Irish government’s bid for an extension of its nitrates derogation, which allows dairy farmers spread more fertiliser than their European counterparts on their land.
The commission wants to make sure wider environmental standards will not be jeopardised if it agrees to roll over Ireland’s exemption to the law protecting waterways from excess farm run-off.
Working from behind a standing desk in her partially-Ikea-furnished office, Roswall finds herself in an awkward spot (though she won’t admit it). She took over the job about a year ago, in the same intake of first-time commissioners as Michael McGrath. The political appetite for bold, green policies had waned.
These days her boss, Ursula von der Leyen, is talking about cutting EU red tape and sharpening Europe’s economic competitiveness, rather than the “green deal” climate reforms that defined her first term as commission president.
Roswall says there doesn’t need to be a clash between policies that are pro-agriculture, pro-business and pro-climate.
“I see it all around Europe that the green transition is something that we need to do, and I also see it as a competitive advantage,” the Swede says. “When I talk with industry, they also agree with that. They don’t see that there is any backtracking,” she says.
“But with that said, we also know that there is a lot of legislation that could be seen as too complex, too bureaucratic ... and farmers absolutely feel that,” the environment commissioner says.
The commission’s effort to simplify EU regulations was a way to cut away some of that burden, without lowering standards, Roswall says.
Environmental campaigners say all of this sounds like the EU is watering down its ambition to lead the climate pivot away from harmful fossil fuels and other pollutants, under pressure from industry and right-wing governments to slow down.
Roswall, as you’d expect, disagrees.
