On Thursday 30 May, the Council of the EU approved an amendment to the regulation on mercury, specifically on “dental amalgams and other products containing added mercury subject to export, import and manufacturing restrictions”.
Current regulations prohibit the use of dental amalgams for treating the teeth of children under the age of 15 and pregnant or breast-feeding women. The new rules extend the ban to all EU citizens from 1 January 2025.
The export of dental amalgam will be banned from the same date, and a ban on its manufacture and import into the EU will apply from 1 July 2026.
This mercury regulation, adopted in 2017, is one of the main EU instruments transposing the Minamata Convention, an international treaty signed in 2013 to protect human health and the environment from the harmful effects of mercury.
The European Parliament and the EU Council adopted their negotiating positions on 17 and 30 January 2024 respectively. The two co-legislators had reached a provisional agreement on 21 February (see EUROPE 13346/5).
To see the text: https://aeur.eu/f/cgn (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)