€5 Levy Should Be Charged For Ultra-fast Fashion Deliveries From China
- Wix Admin
- Sep 25
- 2 min read
As Co-Chair of the 'Sustainable Textile Working Group' in the European Parliament, Barry Andrews MEP welcomes the focus of RTE Prime Time Investigates (Wednesday evening, Irish TV) on the problem of forced labour in China.
Mr Andrews, who called for an Irish levy in April last year, now urges the EU to place a €5 levy on ultra-fast fashion purchases from China instead of the proposed €2 levy, saying:
"As a negotiator on some of the key pieces of EU legislation to tackle the problem of ‘ultra-fast fashion’, I now call on the EU to agree on a €5 levy on each of the billions of low-cost packages from outside the EU.
"There are over 4 billion of these packages delivered directly to homes in Europe each year, with the vast majority coming from China.
"The constant buying and disposing of low-cost clothing is driving massive environmental pollution, widespread exploitation of workers and the undercutting of more sustainable European businesses.
"The current EU custom rules unfairly favours ‘ultra-fast fashion’ and low-cost online giants, such as Shein and Temu, by allowing millions of low-value parcels to enter the EU without full checks or customs charges.
"The European Commission earlier this year proposed a flat fee of €2 to purchases sent to consumers. EU governments and the European Parliament are now negotiating the levy as part of reform of the EU customs rules.
"However, this proposed levy of €2 is too low in my view to change consumer behaviour, and should be set at €5 per package as the French government has proposed."
RTE Prime Time Investigates focused last night on forced labour in fast fashion. Barry Andrews MEP welcomes this focus on such an important environmental topic.
Earlier this year, he co-launched the EU Sustainable Textile Working Group.
Thankfully, the EU is tackling the issue and now has a number of new pieces of legislation in this area:
· Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (Barry Andrews was one of the negotiators on this legislation, and is again a negotiator on the latest proposal by President von der Leyen to water it down),
· Waste Framework Directive,
· Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation,
· Digital Services Act (Coimisiún na Meán regulate Shein and Temu in Europe as online platforms, and the CCPC regulates online influencers),
· Forced Labour Regulation.
The Forced Labour Regulation, aimed at banning products made with forced labour from the EU market, was agreed in Parliament last year and will come into force at the end of 2027. The Commission is setting up the 'Expert Group' of stakeholders and the national authorities should be getting ready.
The EU is also looking at the threshold of EUR150 below which products are duty free, for example looking at adding a cost to each package:
Last year Barry Andrews called for the Irish government to introduce an environmental levy on ultra-fast fashion products sold in Ireland, as the French have done:
More background - an opinion piece by Barry Andrews:
Information on the EU customs reforms 2028 proposals:
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