GENEVA: Negotiations for a landmark global treaty to end plastic pollution descended into a tense, past-midnight standoff on Monday, with the European Union and a bloc of "like-minded countries" (LMC) led by Saudi Arabia, digging in over contentious issues, nearly bringing the entire process to a standstill.
Inside the cramped contact group rooms of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee’s fifth session (INC-5.2), the EU refused to move discussions on finance (Article 11) forward unless negotiators first tackled "upstream measures" — the politically charged provisions aimed at cutting plastic production, eliminating certain products and restricting hazardous chemicals. For them, there could be no agreement on money without clarity on what that money would fund.
The LMCs, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and allies like India, pushed back hard. They demanded that "scope" — a non-article section defining the treaty’s reach — be taken up in informal talks alongside Article 6 on product design and standards. Officially, scope discussions are meant to clarify ambition, but many delegates believe the bloc's real aim is to soften the treaty's core mandate from "end plastic pollution" to the weaker "address plastic pollution" and to strip out explicit references to human health impacts.
In the chair's draft text, scope is only a placeholder, not a binding article. EU negotiators argue that giving it equal weight to formal provisions wastes precious time. "You cannot prioritise informal-informal time for something that doesn't exist as an article," said one European delegate to TNIE.
The LMCs' procedural manoeuvre was twofold. Firstly, secure time for scope while sidelining Article 6, which they oppose outright. Article 6 would set legally binding requirements for product design, material safety and recyclability — rules that could restrict certain plastics at the point of manufacture. By linking the two in sequencing proposals, the LMCs ensured that neither could move forward without the other, a move seen by opponents as calculated obstruction.
"This is not the first time we have seen an attempt to hold one part of the talks hostage to another," said David Azoulay, Director of Environmental Health at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) to TNIE.
"Countries have been saying for years that conversations need to advance in parallel. You cannot have just one moving while the other is blocked. The level of frustration is rising, and the pressure to deliver something is growing," he said.
Finance, meanwhile, became a bargaining chip. Many Global South delegations insist that a treaty without strong financial commitments is meaningless. Article 11 would create a dedicated implementation mechanism, in addition to Global Environment Facility (GEF) funding, to support measures like production cuts and phase-outs. But for the EU, agreeing to such commitments without locking in upstream obligations risks signing a blank cheque.
As the night wore on, tempers flared. The EU dug in: no discussion on finance until the scope fight was settled and upstream measures — including Article 3 on bans and phase-outs, and Article 6 on design standards — were given real negotiating time. The LMCs refused, insisting that scope must come first.
The exchanges stretched past midnight. Delegates darted between whispered side-huddles and tense floor interventions, as bloc leaders recalibrated positions on the fly. One insider described it as "the most action-packed session so far" — not for breakthroughs in text, but for the sheer intensity of procedural brinkmanship.
Observers say the standoff exposes the treaty's central fault line. The LMCs want to define and limit ambition early, insulating petrochemical production from tough restrictions; the EU and other high-ambition states are determined to lock in strong, enforceable upstream measures before agreeing to the financing needed to implement them.
A source in the INC Secretariat told TNIE that some member states have asked for a stocktake plenary on Tuesday, which might happen post 7 pm.