The European Commission wants to improve the regulations for chemical substances
The European chemical Agency (ECHA) announced that it has launched a joint plan with the European Commission, aimed at improving the REACH of the EU regulation governing the registration, as well as the production and trafficking of all chemicals.
Lawrence Hoffstadt, researcher for risk assessment ECHA, said that the review of REACH carried out in 2017, showed that the legislation was “effective but not enough.” “Since the beginning of our activity we began showing significant inconsistencies in the registration dossier,” said Hoffstadt, addressing the participants of the Open Academy of Cosmetic Consultants Europe (CCE) 2019.
These inconsistencies largely related to the lack of supporting research, insufficient documentation or a lack of justified hypotheses of the applied approach, said MS Hoffstadt that have significantly slowed the registration of new substances as safe for use. This was the basis for ECHA and the European Commission have published a joint action plan in June this year, offering “concrete action” to improve compliance with REACH and harmonize all phases.
“Why REACH compliance is really important, because this is the first step, which directly affects the achievement of the objectives of REACH. If we do not have to start the information contained in the list of substances, we cannot confirm whether these substances further regulatory action. Since the end of the last deadline for regulatory compliance has become a priority for ECHA”.
Hoffstadt said that the plan of joint actions aimed at the verification of all registration dossiers and compliance of all substances over 100 tonnes per year by 2023, and all substances in the range of 1-100 tons per year by 2027.
ECHA will also redistribute all registered substances in accordance with REACH of more than 16, 000 – in a low-priority or priority; the latter are those substances which were in the process of regulation. “In order to improve the effectiveness of the assessment of the dossier, we continue to focus on substances which are of particular importance. This means that they have a large tonnage and is widely used in the EU, but it is also the place where we have a lot of data gaps which need to be carefully evaluated”.
“We really complement all that has been achieved so far, but ahead of all of us a lot of problems. It is not only the obligation to comply with REACH, it is also an act of social responsibility for the safe use of chemicals in Europe”, – commented on Hoffstadt.
