The European Commission launched, on Tuesday 4 May a four-week public feedback on its roadmap for the revision of the REACH Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006), including an initial impact assessment.
The Commission’s legislative proposal is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022 and will be preceded by a stakeholder feedback in the first quarter of 2022.
The Commission’s initiative aims at a targeted revision of the REACH Regulation as foreseen in the ‘Chemicals for Sustainability Strategy’ adopted under the framework of the Green Deal to better protect people and the environment from hazardous chemicals and to encourage innovation to develop safe and sustainable alternatives (see EUROPE 12678/13).
This initiative aims to address the following issues:
- Gaps that still exist in the knowledge of many substances. The information required on critical hazard classes does not allow a sufficiently thorough hazard assessment, including for carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity and endocrine disruption. The same applies to intermediates, polymers, and substances in the lowest tonnage range, and no assessment of risks is required for non-threshold substances.
- The registrants’ safety assessments do not take combination effects of chemicals into account.
- Communication in the supply chains is inefficient.
- The evaluation of registration dossiers and substances is too complex and insufficient.
- The authorisation procedure is too heavy and inflexible. The authorisation procedure has imposed a heavy burden on both companies and authorities.
- The current restriction process is too slow to sufficiently protect consumers and professional users against risks from the most hazardous substances.
- The control and enforcement is not equally effective in all Member States.
The feedback is open to all stakeholders until midnight Brussels time on 1 June. To participate: https://bit.ly/3xMUtln (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)