EUROMETREC President Björn Grufman
extracts from the President's address at the EUROMETREC Plenary Meeting
on 22 September 2005

The President opened his remarks by observing that since the General
Assembly of February 23rd, the Brussels secretariat has continued to monitor
legislative matters at the EU Commission and the European Parliament level.
It was regularly checked whether new or revised draft legislation could
affect the EUROMETREC sector, to analyse the possible impacts, to inform
EUROMETREC member associations and to send comments and have meetings with
the responsible EU officials. Two meetings were also organized between the
executive directors of the national member federations in order to discuss
some specific issues and to agree on some common positions.

Among the issues involving EUROMETREC was the new (AQSIQ) "registration"
rules for scrap operators and transporters in China, but also rules in the
Netherlands and Italy, the implementation of the WEEE directive, the
follow-up of the stakeholders meeting of March 11 on the Thematic strategy,
and the proposed revision of the E.U. Waste shipment regulation.

These items were on the agenda of this meeting. With respect to shipments of
"mixed green waste" the situation was still unclear and many E.U. exporters
had problems with their authorities, particularly in Belgium and Holland,
where a national judge has decided to bring the matter to the E.C.J. through
a prejudicial question. Exports of cables and wires were seriously affected,
especially to China. According to the Chinese SEPA, mixed cables and wires
could be freely exported as long as there was a license, if the exporter was
AQSIQ registered and if he had a CCIC certificate.

The Brussels office assisted EUROMETREC membership, but many of the
"official" documents were only in Chinese and there was a lack of goodwill
from the EU authorities, which were reluctant to accept an informal
translation of the texts. It is important that EUROMETREC members regularly
inform their secretariat of this kind of shipment problems. Although
Eurometrec was aware that the EU consumers did not like scrap exports
because the materials escape the E.U. recycling facilities, it was bound to
defend total FREE Trade as long as it was fair, stated the President.

With respect to the latest proposals from the European Parliament on the
revised draft shipments regulation, members should be particularly concerned
by the European Parliament Rapporteur's proposal to suppress the "interim"
operations. Although these words had never been clearly defined, these
operations could capture member company activities. EUROMETREC members must
therefore strongly oppose this proposal.

Since March the Brussels office had been refreshing the EUROMETREC website
which contains key "facts" and "figures" on the organization, although
reliable statistics on scrap arising, consumption and movements were still
missing. It would be very much appreciated if the Executive Directors of the
national member federations could look at the website and propose other
information to be added to it.

Regarding the relationship with EUROMETAUX, EUROMETREC should refresh the
contact.

At the EFR - EUROMETREC dinner, EUROMETREC had invited key Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs). This was a great opportunity for members to hear
the political view but also to express their own views, said the President.
In the future he hoped to see even more MEP's at this event.

Drawing the members' attention to the fact that two years had past quickly
since he had been elected President of EUROMETREC. According to the normal
procedures, at the next EUROMETREC meeting, it needed to be decided who was
going to be mandated for the next two years as President. Mr Grufman stated
he would be willing to consider serving for another two years if members so
wished.

Finally, turing to the market situation, the President inoted that many had
been active in this market for a number of years and never before
experienced this market situation. With all-time high prices for copper,
companies were asked to negotiate long term contracts with producers, who
want to solve their producers' responsibility in one single contract. The
president advised members to be very careful and not be carried away in the
belief that they are buying the scrap cheap. The President pointed at a very
important fact that all members were part of a world market price system,
mainly based on the prices from the London Metal Exchange (LME) and that
this price base will change with a great volatility in the future. The
President concluded as the chief the police would say: "Be careful out
there"!

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Highlights from previous Presidential reports:

European Waste Catalogue and Hazardous Waste List
The European Waste list that incorporates a list of hazardous wastes is still a cause for concern. Whilst changes have been made to reflect the proper nature of several materials EUROMETREC  finds that for example materials coming out of  shredders are still regarded as waste, which ignores the efforts taken to process and separate materials one from another, and the value added to those separated materials, and their suitability for use directly in industrial processes.

VAT fraud on scrap, Export duties and quotas
EUROMETREC is concerned about the VAT fraud that is damaging business and distorting the market in some European Regions notably between France, Spain and Italy. This issue is being followed closely; as is that of duties on scrap exports from Eastern Europe, where it has been agreed that the philosophy of free trade in secondary raw materials must be supported.

Mixed green waste
"Green plus Green" wastes had been stopped at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. The Dutch Ministry having declared that "Green plus Green" wastes need red controls. The EUROMETREC view differs, we strongly believe that a mixture of two or more Green wastes should be subject to the 'green control' procedure (normal commercial transactions), providing the composition of the mixture does not impair its environmentally sound recovery. ( Editors note: EUROMETREC is only concerned with the Recovery and Recycling of non-ferrous metals. )

Standardisation work in CEN
The ongoing standardisation of recycled and recovered materials is of concern to the recycling industry as a whole, as the CEN standard committees in general do not consist of balanced representation from the sellers and buyers  of secondary raw materials. Furthermore the process of standardisation does not work by consensus, leading to the publication of standards that are not acceptable to all parties. A standard for Copper has now been published, that for aluminium is being finalised, for lead scrap a glossary has been produced as a first step and the zinc scrap standard is well advanced. These standards are not, however, fully supported by EUROMETREC, as the standards tend to reflect the wishes rather than the realities of the types of scrap arising.

trade bans and restrictions
EUROMETREC has been particularly active on the trade bans and restrictions that have arisen from the European Legislation (CRs 1420/1999 and 1547/1999) emanating from the Basel Convention. The application of unworkable controls and trade bans have been due to the responses from certain of the non-OECD countries to a not very well understood questionnaire (note verbale) from the European Commission. EUROMETREC together with BIR has managed to ensure that in almost all important trade routes, the required response from the importing non-OECD country was finally made. This matter still takes considerable time to resolve as changes of position occur frequently.

Forum on the Competitiveness of the European Recycling Industries
EUROMETREC had been very active in the Forum on the Competitiveness of the European Recycling Industries that took place during 1999 and ended early 2000. A report from the Forum is available on the Commission Website.

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