GENEVA: The European Union is ready to do a deal to land a groundbreaking treaty on plastic pollution, but not at any cost, the EU’s environment commissioner insisted on Tuesday.

With little over two days left to strike a global accord in talks at the UN in Geneva, Jessika Roswall said it was “time” to clinch a deal between oil-producing countries and more ambitious nations, including EU states.

Five previous rounds of talks over the past two and a half years have failed to seal an agreement, including a supposedly final round in South Korea late last year.

The current talks in Geneva opened a week ago but are due to close on Thursday. “The EU is ready to do a deal but not at any cost,” Roswall told reporters.

“We do like plastic... and we will continue to need it. However, we don’t like plastic pollution and it’s time to end plastic pollution as quickly as possible,” the commissioner said. She said any treaty should give businesses the certainty of a clear global framework in which to operate.

A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group — including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Iran — want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.

The EU and others want to go much further by reining in plastic production — which on current trends is set to triple by 2060 — and by phasing out certain especially toxic chemicals.

Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke admitted that the “wide gap” between the rival camps was making the negotiations a challenge but said the work of tackling plastic pollution “will only get harder the longer we wait. So now’s the time”.

“There’s going to be a whole lot more drama in the days to come,” he said, “but our goal is this drama should end up in a deal”, he said, speaking alongside Roswall at the United Nations. He said all parties, including the EU, had to re-examine their red lines and see where they could tweak them in the interests of landing a deal by Thursday. “If we all stick to our red lines then a deal is impossible,” he said.

“So we have to look at those red lines and we have to negotiate and compromise — because we will be worse off if we don’t succeed in making a deal.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025