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Schwarz Corporate Affairs International GmbH

Schwarz Gruppe

Schwarz Gruppe represents retail chains Lidl and Kaufland, waste management company PreZero, food production and IT services across 30+ countries.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Jan Hendrik Dopheide (Cabinet of Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič)

8 Dec 2025 · Envisaged EU-UK SPS agreement

Meeting with Gabriele Giudice (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Raffaele Fitto)

5 Dec 2025 · Charging infrastructure and building rules

Meeting with Miriam Lexmann (Member of the European Parliament)

19 Nov 2025 · Deforestation legislation

Meeting with Thomas Skordas (Deputy Director-General Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and Deutsche Telekom and BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT (UK)

10 Nov 2025 · Discussion about the public support for the AIGF initiative.

Schwarz Group calls for simplified EU building carbon rules

31 Oct 2025
Topic — Establishing a common EU framework for calculating building life-cycle global warming potential.
Message — The group demands maximum possible harmonisation of the methodology to avoid complexity and costs. They want to explicitly reject the inclusion of components that fall under user-specific fit-out. They also oppose the use of conservative standard values combined with a penalty factor.123
Why — Harmonisation would reduce the unnecessary complexity and increased costs of national rules.4
Impact — Environmental groups lose oversight if the framework removes conservative estimates for missing data.5
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Meeting with Sara Matthieu (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Oct 2025 · Industry, energy, circular economy

Meeting with Christophe Hansen (Commissioner) and

15 Oct 2025 · Mututal introduction and exchange of views on building resilient food supply chain

Meeting with Jens Geier (Member of the European Parliament)

15 Oct 2025 · Exchange on Competitiveness, European Green Del and Bureaucracy

Meeting with Ekaterina Zaharieva (Commissioner) and

15 Oct 2025 · Competitiveness, Scaleup Europe Fund

Meeting with Kerstin Jorna (Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

15 Oct 2025 · Discussion on European and global affairs, in particular on digitalisation and European sovereignty

Meeting with Verena Mertens (Member of the European Parliament)

14 Oct 2025 · Explosives Regulation

Response to Evaluation of the Non-Automatic Weighing Instruments Directive

8 Oct 2025

On behalf of the companies of Schwarz Group, we would like to present two issues to the European Commission for consideration during the evaluation of Directive 2014/31/EU. 1. Digital receipts and weighing operations The Directive, in its current wording, prevents customers from receiving a digital receipt, rather than a printed receipt, when a product is weighed. Annex I, Paragraph 14 states that all indications related to all transactions are printed clearly and unambiguously and are conveniently arranged on a ticket or label for the customer. This restrictive wording hinders the digitalization of processes in retail stores and causes unnecessary waste. Some stores require their customers to weigh unpacked fruit and vegetables themselves. The scale then issues a printed label with the weight and price, which is scanned at the checkout counter. In other stores, the weighing is done by a store employee as part of the checkout process, information on weight and price is included directly on the receipt. We offer our customers the option to receive digital receipts. However, even if customers opt in for a digital receipt, some local authorities insist that a physical label must be printed, whenever weighing takes place at the checkout counter. Stores that fail to issue receipts risk non-compliance action from local authorities. Furthermore, the unwanted printed receipts are usually discarded by customers, resulting in unnecessary waste of resources. Proposed Solution This problem should be solved by amending the essential requirements in Annex I Paragraph 14. The word printed should be replaced with made available or a similar wording that is technology-neutral and allows customers to receive the required information in a digital format. 2. Minimum load requirements and small quantities The Directive mandates that price-labelling instruments must not set a price below a minimum capacity; we fully recognize and accept the technical rationale for these minimum load specifications. However, in retail, this leads to practical issues, when customers purchase smaller quantities, such as fresh herbs or a small piece of ginger, which weigh less than the minimum load. It is a regular cause of irritation for customers, when they are required to buy larger quantities than they actually want. Proposed Solution The Commission should suggest revised essential requirements and add a clause that allows a deviation from minimum load specifications if an article weighs less than the minimum load.
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Meeting with Philippe Moseley (Cabinet of Commissioner Dan Jørgensen)

10 Sept 2025 · Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, e-mobility charging

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and OVH Groupe

2 Sept 2025 · EoV with Greens/EFA ITRE MEPs and external guests on Cloud and AI

Meeting with Birgit Sippel (Member of the European Parliament)

23 Aug 2025 · 3. Etappe der LIDL Deutschlandtour

Meeting with Pierre Bascou (Deputy Director-General Agriculture and Rural Development)

17 Jul 2025 · Experience with the Unfair Trading Practices Directive in the agri-food supply chain

Meeting with Michal Wiezik (Member of the European Parliament)

3 Jul 2025 · Animal welfare

Meeting with Giulia Del Brenna (Head of Unit Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)

2 Jun 2025 · Sustainability of the supply chain and developments in the retail sector

Meeting with Linsey Mccallum (Deputy Director-General Competition) and

19 May 2025 · Market regulation for agricultural products (CMO Regulation), Territorial supply constraints

Meeting with Gustav Kalbe (Acting Director Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

14 May 2025 · Exchange of views on the AI Gigafactories initiative and the ongoing Call for Expression of Interest

Meeting with Pascal Arimont (Member of the European Parliament)

7 May 2025 · Circular Economy and Packaging

Meeting with Jan Hendrik Dopheide (Cabinet of Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič)

30 Apr 2025 · Introductory meeting / current trade policy developments

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and Deutsche Telekom and

29 Apr 2025 · Event: DACH-Tech

Meeting with Lucie Šestáková (Cabinet of Commissioner Jozef Síkela), Natividad Lorenzo (Cabinet of Commissioner Jozef Síkela) and

28 Mar 2025 · Global Gateway

Meeting with Werner Stengg (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen)

20 Feb 2025 · Digital Sovereignty

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

20 Feb 2025 · Digital Policies

Meeting with Manuel Mateo Goyet (Acting Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

20 Feb 2025 · Schwarz state of play and plans in terms of data centres and cloud computing

Meeting with Henna Virkkunen (Executive Vice-President) and

15 Feb 2025 · EU competitiveness and tech sovereignty

Meeting with Maroš Šefčovič (Commissioner) and

15 Feb 2025 · Introductory meeting / trade policy with a focus on EU-US

Meeting with Andrea Wechsler (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Feb 2025 · EU Industry policy

Meeting with Andrea Wechsler (Member of the European Parliament) and FuelsEurope and

4 Feb 2025 · EU Energy and industry policy

Meeting with Jens Gieseke (Member of the European Parliament)

4 Feb 2025 · Austausch zu EU Politik

Meeting with Andreas Schwab (Member of the European Parliament)

5 Dec 2024 · Single Market for gods

Meeting with Christian Ehler (Member of the European Parliament) and Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants and Energy and Climate Policy and Innovation Council e.V.

2 Dec 2024 · Waste to energy

Meeting with Verena Mertens (Member of the European Parliament) and AMBER Alert Europe

26 Nov 2024 · Introductory Meeting

Meeting with Martin Hojsík (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Sept 2024 · Agriculture and circular economy

Meeting with Svenja Hahn (Member of the European Parliament) and Handelsverband Deutschland

18 Sept 2024 · HDE Sommerabend

Response to Rules specifying the obligations laid down in Articles 21(5) and 23(11) of the NIS 2 Directive

25 Jul 2024

Schwarz Group welcomes the opportunity to give feedback to the NIS-2 implementation regulation. In general terms, we ask for congruence with other existing regulations and standards. Specific remarks: 1. The asset management mentioned in Recitals 22-25 is currently implemented by only a few companies and is not a realistic requirement. 2. Recital 36 presumably is lacking a reference at the end of the sentence. Wed suggest inserting malicious actor. "(36) For the purposes of this Regulation, a network and information system should be considered compromised when the availability, authenticity, integrity or confidentiality of stored, transmitted or processed data or of the services offered by, or accessible via [malicious actor], the system is compromised." 3. Art. 7-11: The recurring 5% criteria require a data source for their assessment, e.g. the absolut number of users in the Union is to be determined. These figures would then have to be marked as such and made publicly available. We suggest inserting a reference in the text to where these absolute figures will be available. 4. Art. 7: The 5% threshold is determined by the absolute number of users in the Union. As the market grows, the second hurdle of 1 million users becomes smaller and smaller in relative terms. An absolute figure is therefore not meaningful here. The criterion of a "significant incident" would represent an ever lower threshold over time as the market grows.
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Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

3 Jul 2024 · Measures announced by the European Commission to improve farmers' position in the food supply chain.

Meeting with Birgit Sippel (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Jul 2024 · Public screening of EURO 2024 match (staff-level)

Meeting with Birgit Sippel (Member of the European Parliament)

19 Jun 2024 · Public screening of EURO 2024 match

Meeting with Tom Vandenkendelaere (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Apr 2024 · sustainability agenda; EPBD; CSRD; internal market

Meeting with Deirdre Clune (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Dec 2023 · Packaging and Packaging Waste

Meeting with Angelika Niebler (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur for opinion)

15 Nov 2023 · Packaging and packaging waste

Meeting with Ulrike Müller (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Nov 2023 · PPWR

Meeting with Johannes Hahn (Commissioner)

21 Sept 2023 · Speech at Schwarz Impulse Event re digitisation of the European Public sector and fundamental transformation in society

Meeting with Pascal Arimont (Member of the European Parliament)

21 Sept 2023 · Packaging and packaging waste regulation

Meeting with Pascal Arimont (Member of the European Parliament)

20 Jun 2023 · Company Visit

Meeting with Werner Stengg (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager)

1 Jun 2023 · Courtesy exchange following meeting with EVP Vestager.

Meeting with Margrethe Vestager (Executive Vice-President) and

3 May 2023 · Cloud, cybersecurity, digital skills, EU sovereignty.

Meeting with Wolfgang Burtscher (Director-General Agriculture and Rural Development)

24 Mar 2023 · Exchange of views on F2F strategy

Meeting with Daniel Freund (Member of the European Parliament)

30 Nov 2022 · Situation in Hungary

Meeting with Andreas Schieder (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

14 Sept 2022 · General Exchange of views on EPBD

Meeting with Simona Constantin (Cabinet of Vice-President Věra Jourová)

6 Sept 2022 · Rule of law and the impact on the European Single Market, Due Diligence and corporate responsibility in (global) supply chains, Data Protection / Privacy Shield

Meeting with Virginijus Sinkevičius (Commissioner) and

6 Sept 2022 · To exchange views on the progress towards a more circular economy, including on the forthcoming initiative under the Circular Economy Action Plan on packaging and packaging waste.

Meeting with Daniel Freund (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Jun 2022 · Summer reception (staff-level)

Meeting with Helena Braun (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

25 Apr 2022 · Revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive

Response to Amendment of Regulation (EU) No 282/2008 on the recycling of plastic materials to be used as food contact materials

18 Jan 2022

Die Schwarz Gruppe ist ein international führendes Handelsunternehmen. Sie setzt sich aus den beiden Handelssparten Lidl und Kaufland, der Schwarz Produktion und der Umweltsparte PreZero zusammen. Die Schwarz Produktion zählt zu den führenden Getränkeherstellern und Recyclern von PET-Getränkeflaschen in Europa. Die Schwarz Gruppe nimmt zum Verordnungsentwurf wie folgt Stellung: • Ein europäischer Rechtsrahmen für die Nutzung von recycelten Kunststoffen in Lebensmittelkontaktmaterialien ist notwendig. Ziel sollte sein, die schleppende Zulassung von Recyclingverfahren deutlich zu beschleunigen und Rahmenbedingungen zu setzen, die den Einsatz von bestehenden Recyclingmethoden weiterhin ermöglichen und die Etablierung neuer Verfahren fördern. • Der Vorschlag geht davon aus, dass von recycelten Kunststoffen grundsätzlich eine Gesundheitsgefahr ausgehen kann. Recycelte Kunststoffe (vor allem recyceltes PET) werden aber auf Basis von positiven EFSA-Bewertungen bereits seit vielen Jahren sicher in Kunststoffverpackungen eingesetzt. • Eine Neuausrichtung in Form einer gefahrenbasierten Regulierung halten wir daher für falsch. Stattdessen sollte die Voraussetzung für Einsatz von Rezyklaten weiterhin das erfolgreiche Durchlaufen eines als sicher bewerteten Recyclingprozesses sein. • Die Zulassung von Reyclingverfahren für PET und andere Kunststoffe sollte grundsätzlich gefördert werden. • Wir begrüßen es daher, die Dauer der EFSA-Bewertung grundsätzlich auf maximal sechs Monate zu begrenzen. Eine solche zeitliche Befristung ist erforderlich, da in der Praxis die EFSA-Bewertungen teilweise bis zu 18 Monate dauern. • Wir begrüßen, dass die über 200 von der EFSA als sicher bewerteten Recyclingverfahren (hauptsächlich für PET) zeitnah nach Inkrafttreten der neuen Regelung durch die Kommission zugelassen werden sollen. • Der Vorschlag lässt offen, ob Kunststoffe, die durch chemische Verfahren recycelt werden, in den Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung fallen. • Aufgrund steigender regulatorischer Vorgaben an den Mindesteinsatz von Rezyklaten in Kunststoffverpackungen ist es wichtig, auch Material aus chemischem Recycling verwenden zu können. • Gerade Verfahren des chemischen Recyclings sind geeignet, Rezyklate in Virgin-Material-Qualität zu erzeugen und sollten stets von der EFSA als sicher anerkannt werden können. • Bisher dürfen nur solche PET-Abfälle genutzt werden, die maximal 5% Nicht-Lebensmittelkontaktmaterialien enthalten. Diese Empfehlung ist wissenschaftlich überholt, da auch mit höheren Anteilen die Migrationsschwellenwerte sicher eingehalten werden können. • Der Grenzwert erschwert den Einsatz von recyceltem PET (rPET) aus gemischten Sammlungen im Lebensmittelkontakt. Dadurch wird das ohnehin knappe Angebot an rPET weiter verringert, mit der Folge, dass weiterhin große Mengen PET aus dem geschlossenen PET-Pfandflaschenkreisläufen in andere Anwendungen abfließen • Diese Ausschleusung von Material aus Kreisläufen stünde im Widerspruch zur Kunststoffstrategie der Kommission. • Es ist essentiell, dass Recycling-Technologien, welche bereits von der EFSA als sicher bewertet wurden, auch in Zukunft weiter am Markt genutzt werden können und nicht durch bürokratische Hürden erschwert werden oder gar neu zertifiziert werden müssen. • Die Vorschläge für neue Etikettierungs-Vorschriften sind unverhältnismäßig bürokratisch. Außerdem sollte die Kommission berücksichtigen, dass jede Kennzeichnung auf einem Material dessen Recyclingfähigkeit negativ beeinträchtigt. • Die Anforderungen, die der Vorschlag an Betreiber von neuen Technologien stellt, sind bürokratisch, innovations- und wettbewerbsfeindlich. Die Idee, dass verschiedene Entwickler untereinander und mit ihren Kunden zusammenarbeiten, ist nicht mit dem Wettbewerbsrecht vereinbar.
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Meeting with Anthony Whelan (Cabinet of President Ursula von der Leyen)

19 May 2021 · Voice assistance and future of retail

Meeting with Helena Braun (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

7 Apr 2021 · Implementation of the European Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan

Meeting with Anthony Whelan (Cabinet of President Ursula von der Leyen)

4 Mar 2021 · Voice Assistance & the future of retail

Meeting with Werner Stengg (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager)

8 Jan 2021 · DMA