MEPs told REACH could destroy ‘thousands of jobs’

MEPs will destroy jobs in thousands of small European businesses unless they rethink an environment committee deal on the proposed chemicals directive REACH, according to industry. Originally scheduled for this week, a plenary debate on REACH has been postponed while MEPs and governments try to agree a compromise.

The European Parliament’s environment committee earlier this month voted through several changes to REACH which would alter the deal agreed by ministers last year. Lobby groups hope MEPs will be persuaded to drop some of their more complex amendments before the whole Parliament votes on REACH.

Orgalime, the European engineering association, is concerned about an environment committee amendment on ‘homogenous materials’, such as plastic or glass, which would make it compulsory to file a declaration for every such material when product parts (for example engines) are imported into Europe.

"It is complete nonsense to expect this from a company dealing with hundreds or thousands of materials a year," said Adrian Harris of Orgalime.

The problem would be particularly acute for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), said Harris, adding: "Over 95% of the 130,000 companies we represent are small businesses. People just haven’t thought through the implications of this [amendment]."

Engineering companies provide Europe with everything from fridges and TVs to hospital brain scanning equipment. Harris pointed out that, faced with complicated registration rules in Europe, many manufacturers could switch to importing finished products made outside the EU.

"I am not convinced it will be easy either way," said Harris, "but one declaration with a list of materials will probably be easier than separate declarations for each part of a machine. There is an administrative problem here."

The problem is exacerbated by an environment committee decision to make the substitution of hazardous chemicals compulsory, according to Orgalime.

CEFIC, the European chemicals federation, agreed that mandatory substitution could have unwelcome consequences not foreseen by the environment committee.

According to CEFIC, automatic substitution could mean chemicals with unexpected side effects appear on the market. It said that when Sweden attempted to substitute phthalate (DEHP), hospital workers ended up with allergic reactions to the alternative and DEHP had to be reintroduced.

A total ban on the pesticide DDT might have been better for the environment but would have led to thousands of extra deaths from malaria, according to the group.

CEFIC added that substitution could change the problem rather than remove it, as was the case when CFCs, gases found to be destroying the ozone layer were replaced with HFCs, gases now linked to global warming.

But conservationists said it was a mistake to think mandatory substitution would mean an overnight ban on some chemicals.

"This is not about a ban on substances," said Ninja Reineke of WWF. "Bans would be use-specific. For example, if there were alternatives for 90% of the uses of a chemical, you could still get authorisation for the other 10%.

"Even under the environment committee vote it would still be possible to get authorisation for a chemical where there is no alternative - meaning no suitable alternative."

Reineke said the homogenous materials amendment was very important and brought REACH in line with other EU legislation on hazardous chemicals.

MEPs will destroy jobs in thousands of small European businesses unless they rethink an environment committee deal on the proposed chemicals directive REACH, according to industry. Originally scheduled for this week, a plenary debate on REACH has been postponed while MEPs and governments try to agree a compromise.