REACH political agreement
Member States achieved political agreement on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH), the new chemicals regulation, at the Competitiveness Council in December. It paves the way for the Council and the European Parliament to deliver a final joint agreement next year.
In a joint statement, Lord Bach, who represented the UK in the negotiations, and Lord Sainsbury, who chaired the Council, said: “We are delighted that these long-running Council negotiations on REACH have been brought to a successful conclusion. The agreement achieved here today offers the opportunity to achieve proper protection of humans and the environment whilst maintaining the competitiveness of European industry”.
“REACH will provide the tools necessary to provide detailed information on some 30,000 substances used in the EU, while strengthening the controls covering the substances of most concern. This will allow for a huge leap forward in our awareness of the impact of chemicals and other substances and so ensuring the highest level of protection for European citizens. At the same time, the changes made by the Council significantly reduce the burden on SMEs and put further measures in place to encourage data sharing and minimise testing.”
The key changes agreed by the Council to the Commission’s original proposal are:
Registration
• Reduced information requirements on 1-10 tonne substances, except for substances presenting clear risks (e.g. classified as dangerous and having a wide dispersive use in consumer applications)
• Increased scope for waiving of tests for 10-100 tonne substances on grounds of minimal exposure
• Requirement for registrants of same substance to share core data, allowing costs to be spread and
duplicate testing avoided.
Evaluation
• New EU chemicals Agency given responsibility for co-ordinating and driving forward dossier and
substance evaluation.
Authorisation
• All authorisations to be subject to review
• Greater encouragement for companies to seek safer alternatives
Scope
• Waste exempted entirely from REACH
• Minerals, ores, concentrates and several other substances and categories of substance exempted from registration and evaluation
• Commission to review scope of registration and evaluation (annexes II and III) within 12 months of
REACH implementation
Downstream users
• Potential requirement to produce a chemical safety report limited to substances used by a
downstream user above 1 tonne per year
The only significant difference between the Council and the Parliament at this stage is over authorisation. Both the Council and Parliament have voted to strengthen authorisation, but the Parliament has gone further than the Council by requiring 5 year reviews for all authorisations (the Council proposes that reviews be set on a case-by-case basis), and by providing greater restrictions on the possibility of substances being authorised on the basis of adequate control.
The Council and the Parliament will now undertake a Second Reading of REACH in 2006, in consultation with the Commission, through which all three institutions will seek to agree a final package.
Source: www.defra.gov.uk (accessed 05/01/06)