On Tuesday 25 January the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) unanimously approved (52 votes) the interinstitutional agreement reached last December on the 4th revision of the carcinogens and mutagens directive.
This means the political agreement can proceed to the final stage of the legislative process and is expected to be put to a vote in the plenary session in February. The EU Council supported the agreement, also unanimously, at the end of December.
As a reminder, the co-legislators included reprotoxic substances in the scope of the directive. They ask the European Commission to come back with an action plan by 31 December 2022 to include 25 additional substances, with the possibility of making new legislative proposals (see EUROPE 12855/11).
On the risk-based approach called for by the European Parliament, the co-legislators agreed that the Commission will present guidelines on the subject no later than one year after the Advisory Committee on Safety and Health at Work (ASCH) has delivered its opinion on the matter. However, they did not extend the scope of the directive to Hazardous Medicinal Products (HMPs) (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)