Brussels, 04/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - The overall provision agreement on REACH, on the future European regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemical products in the EU, arrived at on 1st December, is the fruit of a subtle compromise between the Parliament and the Council with a view to a final agreement on second reading, in Strasbourg on 13 December (for details, see EUROPE 9319). The aim is to have the text formally adopted before the end of the year, so that it can come into effect in 2007, with a registration procedure for all chemical substances more than one tonne of which is produced in or imported into the EU annually, which will run until 2018, for small tonnages (1-10 tonnes per year), but for only three years for tonnages of over 1000 tonnes per year and for the most dangerous substances. In terms of a final compromise, the text approved so as to avoid the conciliation procedure, bitterly negotiated over more than three years, necessarily reflects reciprocal concessions, inevitably making it imperfect for the strongest defenders of public health and the environment.
On the most controversial chapter, the authorisation of the most dangerous substances, these concessions allowed Guido Sacconi (PES, Italy), the main Parliamentary rapporteur on this piece of European legislation, not to compromise on the element that was key for the Parliament: in the more or less long term, all the most worrying substances in terms of public health and the environment (some 1,500-2,500 carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic substances, or substances which accumulate in the human body and in nature), authorised initially under appropriate control, will be replaced progressively by safer alternatives which producers will be obliged to research. That is the aim of the substitution plan which producers will be required to submit when requesting authorisation for such substances from a future European Chemical Products Agency (to be based in Helsinki), if alternatives exist. The work programme and timetable for substitution will give precise details of the deadline for the changeover, and will give producers the time needed to prepare for the use of less harmful chemical molecules, given the understanding that it will be up to the Commission to decide on the length of the adaptation period; if there is no alternative on the market, Research and development (R&D) plans, which will have to be submitted to try to find a viable alternative, will pursue the same aim for the benefit of health and the environment, counting on a great effort for innovation from the chemical industry, without setting a deadline for completion of the research.
The Council which, initially, did not want any compulsory substitution principle for all dangerous substances (it felt that appropriate control of these substances was enough to authorise them without any further requirements on producers), no more than it wanted to see authorisation for such substances limited in time, gave ground, because, ultimately, all dangerous substances, with transitional authorisation, will have to be replaced through the efforts of producers. However, the Council won the renouncement of the systematic replacement principle for all dangerous substances as soon as a less harmful alternative becomes available. Similarly, it won a lightening of the requirements on producers when registering substances, particularly in reducing the number of toxicity tests for reproduction. The Council also won increased protection for trade secrets. The contrasting comments which welcomed this compromise separate those who are pleased at the prospect of soon to be adopted legislation which will close the loopholes in the current legislation, which is unable to provide the necessary information on the safety of some 30,000 substances already on the market, and those who deplore the weakening of the original text and the “get-outs” accepted to satisfy the European chemical industry fearful of the cost of reform. “We now have the conditions for a fair agreement. Each will have to understand that it would have proved impossible to get a better compromise,” said Mr Sacconi, who is practically certain that Parliament will back it, since the three main groups (EPP-ED, PES and ALDE) have already given their support. The European Commission is delighted with the outcome which was backed by Vice President Günter Verheugen (Industry) and Commissioner Stavros Dimas (Environment). “The compromise package is a considerable improvement on the current situation as far as health and the environment are concerned, given particular attention to the situation of SMEs and encouraging innovation,” stressed the Commission.
At the other end of the scale, the Greens/EFA and the GUE/NGL groups reproach the European Parliament for having “finally given in to the German chemical industry's intense lobbying”, by accepting a compromise which “authorises most of the substances whose toxicity is very worrying and for which viable alternatives exist”. Environmental NGOs and the European Consumers' Organisation, BEUC, adopt the same line. EP “negotiators have conceded that some carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic substances and endocrine disruptors will still be put in consumer products even when safer substances exist, provided they are subject top 'adequate' control. The only adequate form of control for such substances is substitution when possible,” stress BEUC. (an)