MEP Regina Doherty has written to EU Commissioner Jessika Roswall requesting ‘urgent action, simpler rules and proper protections’ for European SMEs selling online, warning that international sales are becoming unaffordable under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
Under the PPWR, small businesses may be required to register with and report to national producer registers, appoint authorized representatives in the countries they sell to, provide EPR registration numbers and self-certifications to e-commerce platform, and pay Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) fees under a compliance scheme – as Etsy explains in its seller handbook.
Concerns have been raised that this could become an extra regulatory burden for businesses, especially as exact rules can vary between EU Member States.
Doherty critiques the current rules for enforcing a €3 charge on ‘low-value’ goods from outside the EU – a move intended to prioritize European businesses over cheap imports – yet making it difficult for European SMEs to sell to customers.
“I’ve heard directly from Irish businesses questioning whether they can afford to continue selling into other EU countries,” writes Doherty in a LinkedIn post. “The Single Market is supposed to remove barriers, not create new ones.
“These rules were negotiated during the previous European Parliament mandate. Now that we are seeing what they actually mean for small businesses on the ground, it is clear that parts of the system simply do not work.”
In a poll conducted among 500+ Etsy sellers, just over 4% planned to comply with the new regulation. Approximately 48% said they will no longer sell their products in the EU, and around 47% planned to ignore the rules and continue with business as usual.
“I stopped selling to the EU when all this started,” one respondent wrote. “I also stopped selling to the USA due to tariffs. My Etsy shop is now hardly worth doing anymore. I am in the UK and that alone does not bring me enough sales.”
“I read that it’s most likely that if you send a parcel to a country you are not registered with, Etsy will block you from shipping to that country,” another commented. “Platform blocking will become the big barrier to sales.
“Sellers can do the registration themselves at minimal cost, but nobody is going to take the time to register in 27 countries; maybe 4/5 max if it’s worth it, but for most Etsy sellers, it won’t. The EU maestros have struck again in their plan to throttle small businesses.”
Doherty asks Roswall to clarify what immediate relief will be provided to SMEs; whether the Commission plans to establish an EU-wide ‘one-stop shop’ for EPR; and whether a ‘meaningful’ de minimis threshold or simplified regime will be introduced to help businesses sell small quantities across borders.
Doherty also points to an upcoming proposal, likely to come before the European Parliament in October, that would suspend the requirement for businesses to appoint a separate EPR representative in every country where they sell.
Commenting on an Instagram post, the European Commission has stated its plans to “abolish the obligation for EU companies to nominate an authorized representative and drafted a bill in December 2025, which now has to be approved by EU legislators.”
“That’s a start,” Doherty comments. “We need to go further.
“Small businesses are not the problem we are trying to solve. We should be tackling the biggest producers responsible for packaging waste, not strangling our smallest businesses in red tape.”
Doherty encourages Irish business owners to contact Repak for guidance on how the current rules apply to their operations.
The European Commission is also requesting feedback on its draft act concerning national registers of producers. The feedback period will last until 00:00 Brussels time on 10 September 2026.
The development comes after Packaging Europe’s editor at large, Elisabeth Skoda, dove deeper into the administrative burden faced by small traders across the bloc – and the ongoing steps to remedy the situation.
According to the German retail organization Händlerbund, most Member States have opposed the draft bill. A restricted version is scheduled for a draft reading before the European Parliament in October 2026 at the earliest; it is expected to grant an exemption only to micro-enterprises with up to 49 employees and an annual turnover of €10 million at most.
Jessika Roswall also attended a panel at last year’s Sustainable Packaging Summit. She acknowledged that Europe’s rate of circularity sat at just 12% as of November 2025, and stated her commitment to increasing that figure.
“We need resources to put into wealth, not waste,” she said. “Use entrepreneurship and innovation to strengthen Europe.”
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