Legal battles over packaging waste quotas

Slopak is to collect 81.1%, Interseroh 18.3%, Surovina 0.6%.

The lawsuit is dismissed, as it is not admissible to appeal to the Administrative Court due to quotas published on the ministry’s website – this in itself is not an administrative decision, nor is it regulated as an administrative decision by the law (ZVO-1) or the relevant decree. Since it is a matter of deciding on the right, obligation or legal entitlement of an individual company, it is an administrative matter, so a decision that can also be appealed by the client should be issued. Publication on the website does not meet these criteria.

The ministry continues to publish quotas on its website.

The Administrative Court orders the ministry to issue an administrative act to determine the quotas within 30 days. The court emphasises once again that quota determination is an administrative matter, since it is a matter of deciding on an obligation in the field of administrative law – in this case, in accordance with the 2006 Decree on packaging and packaging waste handling. The provisions of the General Administrative Procedure Act must therefore be used when deciding. This, among other things, means issuing a decision that includes all the prescribed elements.

Intersoh contests the procedural decision of the ministry with a lawsuit in the Administrative Court.

Despite the ruling of the Administrative Court, the ministry changes the decree rather than the law. It now stipulates that the PROs and public service providers may not negotiate on the amount of packaging waste to be collected. Article 19 of the decree stipulates that PROs must accept packaging waste from contractors in accordance with the quotas. Quotas are determined by the government with a procedural decision published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia.

After the ministry's rejection of the appeals, Interseroh files an administrative dispute.

The court decides that the obligation to collect packaging waste does not arise from the law (ZVO-1), nor from the 2006 decree or the procedural decision on determining quotas for 2016, therefore the challenged inspection decision is unlawful. The individual regulatory act that imposes the legal obligation to collect packaging waste on the plaintiff is the environmental permit. According to the valid environmental permit, Interseroh only has to handle the packaging that is placed on the market by its EPR producers (in this quantity and regardless of the quotas determined by the ministry).

The judicial practice is confirmed by four more judgments resulting from appeals against the inspection decisions.