What is PPWR?
PPWR is Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste. It was adopted on 19 December 2024, entered into force on 11 February 2025, and began to apply in general on 12 August 2026 — the day Directive 94/62/EC was repealed.
The change from a directive to a regulation is the substance, not a formality. A directive told 27 Member States what to achieve and left each to write its own law; twenty-seven national interpretations grew apart, and a pack that was legal in one country could be refused in another. A regulation applies directly, so the obligations are now identical everywhere. What did not become uniform is the filing: registration, reporting and penalties remain national, which is why compliance still has to be tracked country by country.