EU Circular Economy Act delayed to November after scrutiny board rejection

The European Commission's Circular Economy Act has slipped from a planned third-quarter 2026 publication to November after the Regulatory Scrutiny Board issued a negative opinion on its impact assessment, forcing a rewrite. The Act would amend the Waste Framework, Landfill and WEEE Directives and sets a target to roughly double the EU circular material use rate to about 24% by 2030. Adoption, previously expected in the third quarter of 2027, is now at risk of a compressed timeline against the unchanged 2030 target.

Why this mattersA shorter drafting-to-transposition window compresses the time packaging and electronics producers have to align design, collection and EPR systems before the 2030 target.

• Publication of the Circular Economy Act slips from Q3 2026 to November 2026
• The EU Regulatory Scrutiny Board returned a negative opinion on the proposal's impact assessment
• The Act targets roughly doubling the EU circular material use rate to around 24% by 2030
• The Act covers three pillars: Waste Framework and Landfill Directive amendments, WEEE directive amendments, and horizontal single-market measures for secondary materials
• Adoption had been foreseen for Q3 2027, based on publication a year earlier
• The Act aims to address fragmentation across 27 national extended producer responsibility schemes with differing fee structures and recyclability definitions

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