Leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group Thorsten Frei has declared the planned national plastics tax a failure. The coalition would not implement the levy, he said on 8 November 2026. Frei also described a draft that had been submitted as “unacceptable”. This means that a revenue item previously included in the federal budget budget is no longer available, putting additional pressure on budget negotiations within the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition.
The debate centres on the European Union’s plastics levy, which has been collected since 2021 and paid by member states into the EU budget. In Germany, there had been discussion of shifting some of the burden to manufacturers and suppliers through a national plastics tax on plastic packaging that is not fully recycled. Frei opposed this approach, citing additional costs for businesses and a lack of agreement on how it would be designed. The Ministry of Finance had included revenue from the measure in its plans; according to information from the of the Federal Government, published on the same day. They show both increased participation in the , no specific amounts or final draft bill had been presented.
Frei’s rejection leaves a gap in financial planning that would now have to be filled in another way. The SPD says that without offsetting measures, there is a risk of conflicts between social spending and investment. The CDU/CSU, in turn, says that priorities in the federal budget should be sharpened and spending reviewed critically. Both sides confirm that the European Union continues to collect its plastics levy regardless of the national decision – the main point of contention, therefore, remains how the burden is shared between the state, businesses and consumers in Germany.
As for the process, a national plastics tax would have to go through the regular legislative process and pass Bundestag as well as, depending on how it is designed, the The positions now put forward are initially demands or proposals from individual states, not measures that have already been approved. . Without an agreed coalition decision, swift progress is unlikely. The federal government says that, alongside fiscal considerations, waste and climate policy goals must also be taken into account. Representatives of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group argue, by contrast, that incentives must not put businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
It remains unclear how the coalition will plug the resulting gap in the federal budget. Options include reallocating funds, cutting spending or proposing alternative sources of revenue. No timetable for a new approach had been announced by 9 November 2026. One thing is clear: without a national mechanism for passing on the costs, the European Union levy will continue to burden the federal budget unless a different decision is made about how the costs are distributed.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).