Battery Regulation

(12) This Regulation should prevent and reduce adverse impacts of batteries on the environment and ensure a safe and sustainable battery value chain for all batteries, taking into account, for instance, the carbon footprint of battery manufacturing, ethical sourcing of raw materials and security of supply, and facilitating re-use, repurposing and recycling. It should seek to improve the environmental performance of batteries and of the activities of all operators involved in the life cycle of batteries, such as producers, distributors and end-users and, in particular, those operators directly involved in the treatment and recycling of waste batteries. Such measures will help to ensure the transition to a circular economy and the long-term competitiveness of the Union and should contribute to the efficient functioning of the internal market, while taking into account a high level of protection of the environment. This Regulation should also aim to prevent and reduce the adverse impacts of the generation and management of waste batteries on human health and the environment and it should aim to reduce the use of resources and favour the practical application of the waste hierarchy. Thus, to prevent divergences hampering the free circulation of batteries, by laying down uniform obligations and requirements throughout the internal market, Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is the appropriate legal basis for this Regulation. To the extent that this Regulation contains specific rules on the management of waste batteries, the appropriate legal basis, in so far as those specific rules are concerned, is Article 192(1) TFEU.