EPP threat to reject chemicals proposals

By Karen Carstens

Date: 15/01/04

THE EU's controversial chemicals policy reform will be "sent back to the drawing board" before it even gets through a first reading in the European Parliament, a Conservative British MEP has warned.

Neil Parish said most of his fellow European People's Party (EPP) deputies, who make up the Parliament's biggest political group, will fight tooth and nail to send the REACH proposal back to the European Commission for a thorough overhaul.

Speaking at a debate on potential economic ripple effects REACH could have in the developing world, hosted by news website TechCentralStation, Parish said industry's fears that it would stifle innovation, force small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) out of business and drive chemicals production outside Europe were legitimate.

"There is a great possibility that this will be sent back to the Commission to examine and this is what we [EPP deputies] want to happen," he said of the planned EU-wide system to register, evaluate and authorise thousands of chemicals.

"We need to get enough support to send this back to the drawing board."

Parish said that, at present, some 75% to 80% of Christian Democrat and conservative deputies were staunchly anti-REACH, while the Social Democrats were pretty evenly split and the Greens all support it.

Italian Socialist MEP Guido Sacconi has been tasked with steering the 1,300-page proposal through Parliament.

In a suggested rewrite of the blueprint put forward by the Commission last October, he plays up the focus on safety and "substitution", whereby companies are encouraged to develop safer chemicals to replace existing, potentially more hazardous, ones.

Sources say Sacconi wants to get REACH through Parliament as fast as possible, which is why he has put forward only 98 amendments to the mammoth proposal in his 65-page report.

But most observers agree a first reading is unlikely to be completed before European Parliamentary elections in June.

REACH is currently being handled by an ad hoc working group in Parliament, and the industry, legal affairs and environment committees are reportedly all vying to take charge of it. But Parliament's own rules of procedure state that chemicals legislation falls under the remit of the environment committee.

The ad hoc committee was scheduled to meet today (15 January). EPP deputies have meanwhile said they are filing a complaint with the Parliament's leaders (the conference of presidents), because Sacconi was technically barred under the assembly's rules to publish a report on a piece of legislation before it is decided which committee will handle it.

German Christian Democrat MEP and EPP industry spokesman Werner Langen described Sacconi's conduct as "unacceptable".

Langen has asked Pat Cox, the Parliament's president and Julian Priestley, its secretary-general, to intervene and "put an immediate stop to any further handling of this report".

Langen said the environment committee should not deal with REACH in Parliament, especially given that EU industry - and not environment - ministers have taken the lead in handling chemicals policy.

The Commission estimates REACH's costs to the chemicals industry will be around €2.3 billion over an 11-year-period. Total maximum costs, including those to downstream users, are put at €5.2 billion.

But the chemicals industry has claimed the real costs could be far higher.

Green groups, meanwhile, cite the often overlooked and difficult-to- quantify costs to human health and the environment of not implementing a system such as REACH.

Stefan Scheuer, a chemicals and water policy officer for the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and another speaker at the TechCentralStation event, claimed that conservatives such as Parish and their industry friends were failing to take into account the "long-term thinking" of REACH. He claimed that, under the current patchwork of EU rules, up to 95% of chemicals are not safety assessed.

Over a ten-year-period, the EU-wide costs of cancer-related illnesses from exposure to chemicals in the workplace could amount to €40 billion, as well as costs of almost €30bn for allergies alone - especially in children.

Scheuer, moreover, also said that firms will be encouraged by REACH to substitute safer chemicals for more harmful ones, and that "consortias" will form so that firms can pool data and thus cut costs.

But Parish begged to differ: "This idea of forming big syndicates is not going to work because we have something in Europe called competition policy, and price-fixing will inevitably occur if you've got companies working on this together."

Moreover, he added, REACH might actually discourage companies from developing "greener" products.

"If you spend all your money evaluating existing chemicals, then no more money will be available to develop new ones. That is why REACH is not practical in its current form, and that's why it has to go back."

Meanwhile, the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday (12 January) unveiled the results of its own experimental "trial runs" on three chemical "production streams" for REACH.

German officials said the results were, by and large positive and that the REACH system is feasible for industry.

However, they recommended that several adjustments be made to ease the costly regulatory burden on SMEs.

ESO: In Focus: Chemicals: Commission presents proposal to modernise EU legislation, October 2003 http://www.europeansources.info/record/chemicals-commission-presents-proposal-to-modernise-eu-legislation-october-2003/

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