Luxembourg, 06/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - The draft Reach regulation for registration, assessment and limited authorisation of chemical products was successfully improved, yet again, on Monday in Luxembourg. The debate at the Competitiveness Council on the role for the European Chemicals Products Agency and the follow-up to the results of the recent impact assessment studies of this future legislation, which helped gain consensus on two points: 1) elements are now sufficient for advancing; 2) the future European chemical products agency is expected to play a more important role in evaluating substances, as a centralised agency but it will also use the expertise of the national authorities. The president of the Council Jeannot Krecké appeared satisfied with Monday's progress when he addressed the press.
He declared that “Reach has made a lot of ink flow and provoked a lot of fears but during the work the case has illustrated its practical advantages, whereas there were doubts, notably by way of the workshops on 11-12 May which analysed the most recent impact studies and several alternatives proposed by Member States. With fifty impact studies, the time comes when if you want perfection, you'll be waiting a long time. The results and conclusions from the analysis will allow for a conclusion under the British presidency”.
Krecké also welcomed the consensus to assessing the substances “which we want to be as homogenous as possible” to go through the centralised agency. He added that national agencies had to form a network for ensuring communication with the central agency. He explained that countries wanted to keep their capabilities of assessment intact but agreed on harmonising in order to pool data at a central level. The French SAGE proposal (aiming to strengthen the role of the agency in relation to the national authorities) got the support of most delegations. Germany was concerned by financial resources involved in the system. Sweden was the most overtly reserved, concerned that SMEs had an easy and close contact with the European Agency (this concern of proximity was shared by Estonia). Modalities for organising the system and shaping action by the Central Agency and the national authorities still needs to be worked out.