Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
| Applies from | 12 August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Binds | Everyone |
| Evidence | LOCKED read in the EUR-Lex text |
Sets the vocabulary the whole regulation runs on. The ones that decide who you are: manufacturer at Art. 3(1)(13)(a) is whoever has packaging designed or manufactured under its own name or trademark, regardless of whether any other trademark is visible, which is why private label normally lands on the retailer. That rule is expressly 'subject to point (b)', and point (b) reverses it: where the brand owner is a micro-enterprise under Recommendation 2003/361/EC as applicable on 11 February 2025 AND its packaging supplier is located in the same Member State, the manufacturer is the SUPPLIER, not the brand owner. Both conditions must hold together, so a micro-enterprise buying from a supplier in another Member State stays on the hook itself. Placing on the market at Art. 3(1)(10) is the first making available on the Union market. Producer responsibility organization is Art. 3(1)(66). Get these wrong and every downstream obligation attaches to the wrong party.