Finnish EU presidency bullish on REACH despite setback

The Finnish government, holder of the presidency of the Council of Ministers, is still pressing for a deal before the end of the year on REACH, the proposed EU chemical legislation, despite a setback this week in Parliament.

A vote in the European Parliament’s environment committee on Tuesday (10 October) saw MEPs approve a text substantially changed from the common position adopted by governments last December, leading to fears that a second reading agreement will be impossible.

Finland made agreement on REACH ­- expected to involve the registration of more than 30,000 chemicals - a priority of its six-month presidency. But unless governments, MEPs and the European Commission find a compromise on the proposal it will go to a complicated third reading ‘conciliation’ procedure.

"We have not given up," said a presidency official. "We are trying to negotiate and we still believe there is political will on all sides. It is not in anyone’s advantage to have conciliation; REACH is too difficult, too technical and too complicated."

She predicted that the substitution of hazardous chemicals would be the most sensitive issue in negotiations.

Tuesday’s vote saw MEPs agree by 41 to 17 in favour of always substituting hazardous chemicals when safer alternatives exist. Governments said substitution was not necessary if a company could demonstrate "adequate control" of a hazardous substance.

Environmental groups were delighted with Tuesday’s result.

"The environment committee has closed a major loophole which would have allowed hazardous chemicals on the market even when there were safer alternatives," said Ninja Reineke of green group WWF.

"This sends a strong signal to governments to improve the Council text if they want to avoid conciliation," she added.

But WWF is less concerned than the Finnish government about avoiding conciliation, according to Reineke. "For us only the outcome counts. We don’t want a quick agreement that is no good."

UEAPME, the lobby for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), warned that the results of the environment committee vote could be too expensive for small businesses to apply.

UEAPME’s Guido Lena said that, while voting through increased registration and notification requirements, MEPs had failed to take account of an increased SME workload.

"The vote was 100% good for human health and the environmental guarantees, and we welcome this. But in order to offer these guarantees you need a lot of people and money that SMEs don’t usually have."

Lena said his group was also unhappy that the environment committee had rejected calls for independent evaluations of applications for exemptions from a simplified registration procedure.

"Many companies wanted to opt out of sharing data under the ‘one substance one registration’ [OSOR] procedure, usually because of confidentiality concerns. Unless there is an independent evaluation of the opt-outs this will be a bit like a football match with no referee. The strongest will always win," he said.

The Finnish government, holder of the presidency of the Council of Ministers, is still pressing for a deal before the end of the year on REACH, the proposed EU chemical legislation, despite a setback this week in Parliament.