The EU Council and the European Parliament met on Tuesday 28 January for a first session of inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogue’) on revising the Detergents Regulation.
The proposal for a regulation on detergents and surfactants, amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and repealing Regulation (EC) No 648/2004, aims to simplify and make more permanent the current rules in order to better protect health and the environment and ensure a better functioning of the single market for detergents, according to the European Commission.
According to its co-rapporteur, Majdouline Sbaï (Greens/EFA, French), the text should be “the first step towards the European objective of ‘Zero Pollution’ by 2050”. In particular, it introduces obligations for digital and physical labelling to enable better sharing of information, biodegradability requirements for future products and the creation of a product passport easily accessible to customers, according to Parliament.
“The dossier is technical and the positions of the EU Council and Parliament are quite close, so it shouldn’t be very difficult to find common ground”, said a source close to the dossier.
The priorities of Parliament’s mandate relate to extending the list of micro-organisms subject to restrictions, new limitations on the content of phosphates and other phosphorus compounds, and the need for organic ingredients in detergents other than surfactants to be biodegradable.
Parliament has also added an article banning animal testing for detergent safety.
Negotiations will focus on deadlines, the extent of restrictions on phosphates, labelling obligations and restrictions on micro-organisms, according to the same parliamentary source.
For example, the EU Council sets the evaluation of the list of micro-organisms at seven years after the regulation’s entry into force, compared to the three years supported by Parliament.
In a report published five years after the text came into force, the European Parliament called for an assessment of the economic feasibility of “phasing out” phosphorus in domestic detergents and its “progressive restriction in detergents for industrial or institutional use”. For its part, the EU Council is talking about the possibility of “further limiting phosphorus content or adding restrictions for other product categories”.
The next ‘trilogue’ will not take place until next May. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)