European Union

The DSCC welcomes EU Council and Parliament’s provisional agreement to create a sustainable life cycle for batteries 

22 December, 2022

On 9 December, the EU Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on a proposal for a new regulation that aims to create a circular economy for the batteries sector. The proposed legislation will apply to all batteries, including electric vehicle batteries, and regulate the entire life cycle of a battery for the first time. This will ensure that they are sustainable throughout their supply chains, from design and production to reuse and recycling. 

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EU protects 16,000 km2 of vulnerable deep-sea life

15 September, 2022

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release – 15.9.22

Today’s announcement by Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries will close over 16,000 square kilometers of the deep sea to bottom fishing in EU waters of the Northeast Atlantic. This will bring much needed protection to deep-sea corals, sponges and other habitat forming species off the Atlantic coasts of Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal.

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Civil society urges immediate action to protect fragile deep sea ecosystems

25 July, 2022

Press Release

Six years after the adoption of the EU deep-sea fishing Regulation that prohibited bottom trawling below 800 meters in EU waters, the EU has finally adopted an ‘Implementing Act’ to begin closing coldwater coral and other biologically diverse deep-sea vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) below 400 meters depth to bottom fishing. 

Civil society welcomes this long-awaited protection of VMEs. The adopted protective measures are, however, already under threat.

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Why EU should follow the Pacific example and prohibit deep-sea mining in European seas

22 April, 2022

Source: Seas At Risk

A new Alliance of Pacific parliamentarians calls on Pacific leaders to protect its territorial waters from deep-sea mining. Their action sets an example for the EU, which continues to address its deep-sea mining precautionary position exclusively to international waters, largely ignoring deep-sea mining risk in European seas.  

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