EXPLORING THE DINAMICS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN PLASTICS BETWEEN THE WESTERN BALKANS AND THE EU: A FOCUS ON CIRCULAR ECONOMY PRACTICES

Abstract

The increasing emphasis on sustainability within the European Union has brought the issue of plastics to the forefront of the discourse of circular economy. The increment of global awareness of plastic pollution creates significant implications for international trade in goods, particularly for regions like the Western Balkans. This region, aspiring for deeper integration with the EU, has to manage the complexities of trade in plastics while adhering to implement environmental standards.
Recently developed circular economy strategic documents and roadmaps of the Western Balkan countries indicate that they are still in the early phase of adopting circular economy practices, often failing to realize that the circular economy is a much broader approach than merely waste management. Unfortunately, plastics is still not a high priority on the agenda of these countries.
This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the international trade in plastics between the Western Balkans and the European Union, specifically examining the status of primary plastics as a vital raw material. Additionally, it analyzes intratrade dynamics among the Western Balkan countries, focusing on the patterns, flows, and implications of trade in plastics within the region.
The study addresses several critical questions: Firstly, what are the current export/import patterns of plastics in the Western Balkan countries with the EU which serves as their largest trading partner, and among themselves? Secondly, does the region exhibit a dependence on imported plastics, and how might principles of circular economy be leveraged to reduce it? Thirdly, what is the degree of the region's dependence on primary imports of plastics? Additionally, what are the intratrade flows of plastics within the Western Balkan countries? Lastly, why is it imperative for the Western Balkans to formulate national strategies focused on plastc management within the region?
To facilitate this analysis, the research utilizes the COMTRADE database provided by the United Nations. The analysis of trade in plastics relies on the Harmonized System (HS) codes, specifically HS:39, which is used for declaring plastic materials and their products. COMTRADE data, as well as data from the World Customs Organization data base, primarily serve as a mechanism for trade statistics regarding imports and exports of plastics. They enable comprehensive comparisons across different countries and time periods, expressed in CIF and FOB values in US dollars. However, a limitation of this classification system is its focus on customs needs rather than statistical analysis, which may affect the depth of insights drawn from the data. This paper aims to fill the critical gap in the existing literature, particularly having on mind the lack of statistical data on these trade flows within the region.