From next July 1st, the number of companies exporting to Germany will expand, which will have to fulfill the obligations established by the very strict German law on packaging, under penalty of heavy fines (up to 200 thousand euros) and a ban on sales.
The obligations are an update and an extension of those provided for by a law that entered into force in 2019, the “VerpackG”. The rules contained therein only for packaging intended for the final consumer will be extended to the B2B sector from July and therefore the entire export chain will be involved (commercial and transport packaging, those of products containing harmful substances, disposable packaging for drinks).
News for the whole supply chain
The innovations will potentially affect the entire production chain and reinforce the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR), according to which each producer or first distributor of packaged goods in Germany must ensure the correct management of the packaging until the end of its life cycle. .
A novelty that concerns a large number of Italian companies, Germany being Italy’s main trading partner with an overall trade that exceeded 142 billion euros in 2021. Particularly involved is the channel of online platforms, such as Amazon, which are asking their suppliers to comply even earlier, by June 15, under penalty of blocking sales, since the platforms also risk penalties for how the new responsibility is conceived. online.
Requests to the Chamber of Commerce
In recent days, the Italian-German Chamber of Commerce, AHK Italien, is receiving a considerable amount of requests for information. “It is clear that the extension has disruptive effects for the audience of companies affected by the new regulations” says Simona Bellotti, head of the Environmental Services office of AHK Italien. «If previously it was the manufacturers and distributors of packaging destined to reach consumers that were interested, now it is the entire supply chain that has to comply with the required standards. This means that potentially every Italian company that exports to Germany, or that operates as a supplier of German companies, can be concerned by the question “.