REACH proposals do not suit industry

Predictable differences of opinion have emerged following the publication of the European Commission's revised proposals for the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH).

Industry associations, including the CIA and the European umbrella group CEFIC have applauded the Comission's compromises, such as the reducion in the number of chemicals which will need to undergo the rigorous testing called for by REACH, but still maintained that the regulations are unworkable and damaging to competitiveness and investment in their present form. Environmental groups, meanwhile, claim the proposals have been 'watered down to suit industry demands.'

The EC has reduced the number of chemicals which will come under the REACH system by raising the production threshold - only substances produced in Europe in volumes of 10tpa or greater will need to be tested, rather than 1tpa, reducing the number of chemicals to be tested from 30 000 to around 10 000.

Companies registering chemicals will also be granted anonymity to protect commercial interests. Costs to industry of the proposals will fall by 82 per cent from the original proposals, the Commission says, to some 2.3billion Euros over an 11-year period. Costs to downstream users will be 2.8billion-2.6billion Euros over a period of 11 and 15 years respectively. These costs could rise to 4billion-5.2billion Euros if supply chain adaptation costs are higher.

The proposals did not meet with approval from environmentalists. Greenpeace campaigner Jorgo Iwasaki Ross says that 'REACH has been stripped down to its bare bones'; while John Hontolez, secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau, is even more scathing. 'A few big and dirty companies have driven the Commission to set a dangerous precedent, allowing specific business interests to prevail against public health and environmental protection,' he says.

The political heavyweights added their voices to the industry's side, however - French president Jacques Chirac, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and British prime minister Tony Blair sent a joint letter to Commission president Romano Prodi in September stating that the original proposals were 'too bureaucratic and unnecessarily complicated', did not 'prioritise sufficiently between the handling of substances', and 'would not be workable in practice.'

CEFIC chairman Eggert Voscherau welcomed the joint letter, saying that they 'clearly support the competitiveness of the chemical industry in Europe.' However, CEFIC was less thrilled by the new proposals, which it says go in the right direction on scope but represent no progress on workability. What's needed, it says, is a central agency with 'full responsibility for all aspects of prioritisation, decision-making and management of the system'. This, it says, will ensure that the REACH process is speedy and efficient, and prevent market distortions. The system must also make its priority the testing the substances of highest concern, rather than highest production volume; and it should base regulatory decisions on 'sound science and risk', rather than 'hazard and tonnage.'

The CIA decried the lack of an extended impact assessment in the new proposals.

'Although the Commission has recently published its own impact assessment to add to those conducted by France and Germany, there is still no one study which presents a comprehensive picture which matches up the Commission's own guidelines for impact assessment,' it says. Going ahead without fully assessing the impact would be 'a leap of green faith which results in us all being wise after the event,' says director general Judith Hackitt.