Testing times for REACH as chemical rules face trial

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 14/10/04

THE European Commission, businesses and member states are to begin a first-of-its-kind trial to see whether controversial rules forcing companies to register 30,000 chemicals will work. From 1 November a selection of companies from all sides of the chemical industry will follow the registration procedure outlined in the proposal - known as REACH - for nine chemicals to inform decision-makers of the potential difficulties.

"There has never been a practical testing of a legislative proposal at EU level before," said Lena Perenius from the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), a business partner. "We hope the findings could be useful when the serious discussions start."

The partnership - known as SPORT (Strategic Partnership on REACH Testing) - expects to provide interested parties including the Commission, MEPs and the chemicals industry with results when they arrive, with the final report expected to be ready on 1 July 2005. It will be monitored by a 'steering committee' composed of representatives from the Commission, members of Cefic, the European association of small and medium enterprises (UEAPME), the EU employers' federation UNICE and officials from Finland, Germany and Italy.

The launch of the trial comes after comments made by incoming commissioner for enterprise Günter Verheugen who told MEPs that REACH could be adjusted if it became clear that industry would "collapse" under the weight of the proposal. The chemical industry has attacked the draft directive since it was presented in October last year, claiming it will be overly burdensome.

During the trial, companies including chemical giant BASF and photo firm Fuji Photo Film as well as smaller firms and chemical importers, will apply REACH registration procedures to a range of nine chemicals. This involves finding out how the chemical will be used, not just by the manufacturer but by all the companies which use the chemical, in order to compile a 'registration file' which would then be submitted to the appropriate member state and then the European Commission.

"We want to test the procedures and processes to see whether there are bottlenecks and whether it's possible to solve them," said UEAPME's Guido Lena. Many of the companies in the supply chain are smaller companies which will be affected by the new rules. A potential problem might be the fact that some users of a particular chemical may, for competition reasons, be unwilling to tell the manufacturer how the chemical is used, he said. The trial will only consider the practical elements of the registration process and will not investigate the cost burden for companies. The Commission will also use the results to draw up guidance rules for the directive's implementation after it has been adopted, Perenius said.

The European Commission, businesses and member states were to begin a first-of-its-kind trial to see whether controversial rules forcing companies to register 30,000 chemicals will work. From 1 November a selection of companies from all sides of the chemical industry were supposed to follow the registration procedure outlined in the proposal - known as REACH - for nine chemicals to inform decision-makers of the potential difficulties.