Bonn calls for tough new rules on chemicals testing

Date: 29/04/1999

By Renée Cordes

CHEMICAL manufacturers would be forced to conduct rigorous tests to ensure their products do not pose any risk to public health or the environment under proposals drawn up by the German presidency.

EU environment ministers are expected to support Bonn's approach at a three-day informal meeting in Weimar which begins next Friday (7 May).

A paper drawn up by German officials ahead of the meeting urges the European Commission to develop an efficient, integrated and coherent EU strategy for regulating chemicals found in the environment. This would include tough new rules requiring firms to carry out mandatory risk assessments on new products before putting them on the market.

The aim of the plan is to ensure that the precautionary principle is applied in full, rather than relying on public health authorities to take swift action to remove a product from the market later on in response to concerns about its impact on health or the environment.

Last December, ministers pledged to develop a new integrated strategy for Union chemicals policy incorporating the precautionary principle. Acting Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard has also called for an overhaul of the EU's 30-year-old chemicals policy amid growing public concern about environmental and health risks.

" We are getting the message that the current Community legislation just is not doing the job," she said recently. "We need a system that demonstrably deals with the concerns, with the emphasis on prevention rather than cure."

Environmental organisations claim that more than 100,000 chemical substances have been on the European market since 1980, of which only 17 have undergone risk assessments. However, EU officials say that the number of chemicals likely to be affected by any policy change is closer to 1,200.

Bjerregaard has yet to come forward with specific policy proposals, and these are now set to be delayed even further following the resignation of President Jacques Santer and his team last month.

At next week's meeting, German Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin will seek support from his EU counterparts for his efforts to force the Commission to move ahead with the strategy quickly. But diplomats doubt that this will have much impact on the institution, given the decision taken by the 20-strong team of Commissioners when they resigned not to launch any new initiatives while they remain in office in a caretaker capacity, and some have accused Bonn of jumping the gun unnecessarily.

" As long as the Commission has not outlined its strategy, it is quite meaningless to have Council conclusions," said one, adding that the ball was already in the Commission's court. "What Germany is doing is a bit like overkill."

The delay is likely to please the chemical industry, which could face heavy additional costs if the German proposals are adopted.

But environmental groups claim that the plan would not adequately protect public health and the environment.

" Even if they adopt these recommendations, these are still only recommendations," said Axel Singhofen, an EU toxics advisor to Greenpeace International's European unit. "We are confronted with 100,000 chemicals and existing risk assessment legislation has not delivered a single result."