EMMA submission on packaging and packaging waste rules concerning national registers of producers.
Europe’s music ecosystem is dominated by small businesses: almost 80% of managers surveyed by EMMA in 2025 run their own company or work freelance. Artists, managers and independent labels operate with small teams, small production runs and tight margins. They frequently sell limited quantities of vinyl, CDs, cassettes and merchandise directly to fans dispersed across Europe.
These are exactly the businesses most affected by the PPWR’s country-by-country EPR obligations, reporting arrangements and authorised representatives.
EMMA believes the impact on Europe’s music ecosystem will be severe. These country-by-country requirements create new barriers to cross-border trade and directly undermine the EU’s Single Market objectives. We are already seeing small music businesses withdraw from individual Member States, restrict sales or become more dependent on larger intermediaries. This means lost income and fewer opportunities for artists and their teams, while fans, particularly in smaller markets, lose access to independent and niche music. The result will be less competition, less cultural circulation and a European music market increasingly dominated by the small number of businesses able to absorb significant compliance costs.
The evidence below shows why harmonised forms alone are insufficient and demonstrate why SMEs need an exemption or, at minimum, a single EU-wide registration system proportionate to their sales.
Context & Impact
The data we have clearly illustrates the limited scale and administrative capacity of much of Europe’s cultural sector. Eurostat reports that 78% of people working in creative, arts and entertainment enterprises are employed in micro-enterprises, with a further 11.6% in small enterprises and 6.5% in medium-sized enterprises.[1] EMMA’s 2026 survey reflects this structure: 49.1% of managers reported earning below €20,000, while 80%+ of respondents operated through their own company or worked as freelancers. For many managers, compliance must therefore be handled alongside artist development and core business work, without dedicated legal or reporting staff.
Physical sales remain important in the music ecosystem. Bandcamp reports that fans bought 1.6 million vinyl records, 850,000 CDs and 250,000 cassettes through its platform during the preceding year.[2] For an independent artist, revenue from physical releases are vital to help finance recording, touring and future creative work.
However, demand for an emerging or specialist artist is rarely concentrated in a single national market, now fans are reachable everywhere, artists are able to find their audiences across the world. This means a viable European audience may consist of only a few customers in many countries. The Single Market is valuable precisely because it brings those small pockets of demand together to support sustainable careers.
Evidence collected by Forum Musikwirtschaft provides a clear example. In the first half of 2026, one small music company sent 550 parcels, including 150 to customers across 23 EU and neighbouring countries. In more than half of those markets, it sent no more than three parcels. Yet the company estimated that authorised representation across the relevant markets would cost approximately €6,900 each year, before licensing and reporting costs.[3] For a business making only a handful of sales in many countries, these fixed costs are entirely disproportionate.
This is the problem in its clearest form: the company has a valuable European market, but not 23 substantial national markets. The Single Market brings dispersed demand together; country-by-country EPR compliance pulls it apart again.
Commercial quotations for EPR compliance show how quickly these costs can accumulate. EcoComply, a German compliance provider, advertises registration, reporting and authorised-representative services for €1,000 per country per year.[4] First Floor, an independent music-industry publication, calculated that first-year coverage across all 27 Member States through another provider, Eldris, would cost nearly €16,000.[5] These are commercial prices rather than statutory fees, but they demonstrate the scale of the costs small businesses may face.
The likely consequence is market withdrawal. Eurochambres has warned that, where an SME makes only limited sales into a Member State, the cost of appointing a national authorised representative may exceed the value of those sales, leaving the business little choice but to stop serving that market.[6]
One Single Market, not 27 systems
Articles 44 and 45(3) of the PPWR require producers to register, and certain cross-border producers to appoint an authorised representative, in each relevant Member State.[7] The implementing act covered by this consultation can harmonise registration and reporting formats, but it cannot create an SME exemption or replace national registrations with a single EU-wide system.
EMMA recognises that these changes require parallel legislative action. This legal limitation strengthens the case for such action; it does not justify proceeding with a system that the evidence shows will be harmful.
We call for:
- Exemption of SMEs from country-by-country EPR administration
The Commission should bring forward an urgent targeted amendment to the PPWR exempting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises from having to register, report and appoint an authorised representative separately in every destination Member State.
This would not exempt SMEs from packaging safety or environmental standards. Nor does it need to exempt them from making a proportionate contribution to the management of the packaging waste they generate. The exemption should remove the fixed, country-by-country administrative system that makes small-volume cross-border trade uneconomic.
Eligibility should be determined through one EU-recognised declaration, not through 27 separate applications for exemption.
- At a minimum, create one legally sufficient EU registration
If a full SME exemption is not adopted, the PPWR should be amended so that one registration and one recognised identifier are legally sufficient throughout the EU.
Businesses should provide their information once. They should not need separate national accounts, registration numbers, representatives or compliance contracts.
Any environmental contribution could then be allocated to the appropriate Member State within the system, without requiring the business to recreate its compliance arrangements in every country.
- Base contributions on actual sales and packaging, not number of countries
Any remaining contribution should be calculated according to the quantity and type of packaging associated with actual sales.
Small sellers should be able to use standard packaging categories or reasonable per-order weight estimates and make one consolidated payment. There should be no fixed national entry charges, annual country retainers or minimum fees unrelated to the amount of packaging placed on the market.
- Use this implementing act to create one submission process
While a single legal registration requires amendment of the PPWR, the Commission should use the current implementing act to go as far as its legal powers allow.
The final act should establish:
- One EU access point through which a business submits its core information once.
- Automatic transfer of that information to the relevant national registers.
- Common, minimal data requirements with strict limits on additional national fields.
- Reuse of verified information across countries and reporting years.
- A free EU-wide interface through which platforms can verify a seller’s status.
This must function as one submission process, not as a webpage that simply redirects businesses to 27 national systems.
- Provide transitional protection while legislation is corrected
Small businesses should not be penalised, excluded from platforms or prevented from selling across borders while the EU has not provided a proportionate and practically usable system.
The Commission and Member States should provide clear transitional arrangements, prioritise good-faith correction over penalties and avoid enforcement that causes businesses to withdraw from European markets before the necessary legislative changes are made.
Urgent action to protect the Single Market
The Commission’s own Single Market Strategy identifies EPR schemes as a frequently reported barrier to cross-border business,[8] while at the same they have committed to reducing administrative burdens for SMEs by at least 35%.[9] The plan to embed separate registrations, representatives and reporting arrangements in every Member State would clearly and directly deepen the burdens the Commission has pledged to address.
Large companies can spread these fixed costs across thousands of orders, artists and independent labels selling three records into a country cannot. Without urgent action, small businesses will withdraw from lower-volume markets, reducing artists’ income, competition, cultural circulation and cutting off access to fans in smaller countries.
EMMA therefore calls for an SME exemption from separate national EPR obligations or, at minimum, one EU-wide registration and compliance system proportionate to actual packaging and sales. As this requires amendments to Articles 44 and 45, the Commission must reduce the burden as far as possible through the implementing act and initiate the necessary legislative changes without delay.
Twenty-seven separate national systems do not become a Single Market simply because they use the same form. Europe must enable artists to reach every European fan, rather than allow a single sale to trigger another annual compliance bill.