On 28 May 2018, as part of the EU Plastics Strategy, the European Commission proposed a Directive to reduce the impact of certain plastic products in the environment. It puts forward some radical reduction measures.
It is already highly controversial and strongly discussed amongst all EU stakeholders. Overall, the idea behind the proposal is to target products that are among the so-called “10 most found items of litter on EU beaches” including fishing gear containing plastics. The proposal defines plastics and single use plastic items and then sets out seven measures to be applied to different types of single use plastic item that are listed in an Annex.
You can find the proposal here
The proposal will now be considered by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers (the 28 EU member countries) who will have to jointly decide and agree on the final text. The final content has to be agreed within 10 months, before the May 2019 European Parliament elections.