Proposal for a COUNCIL DECISION on the submission, on behalf of the European Union, of a proposal for the listing of additional chemicals in Annex A, B and/or C to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (the Convention), which was approved by Council Decision 2006/507/EC, entered into force on 17 May 2004. The aim of the Convention is to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The Convention provides a framework, based on the precautionary principle, for elimination of production, use, import and export of currently twenty-three priority POPs, their safe handling and disposal and elimination or reduction of releases of certain unintentional POPs.

Regulation (EC) No 850/2004 on persistent organic pollutants implements in Union law the commitments set out in the Convention and in the Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (the Protocol), approved by Council Decision 259/2004/EC.

Article 8(1) of the Convention stipulates that any Party may submit a proposal to the Secretariat for listing a chemical in Annexes A, B or C to the Convention which will then be reviewed by the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POP RC). The proposal shall contain the information specified in Annex D. The procedure for the adoption of amendments to Annexes is governed by Article 22 of the Convention.

This proposal for a Council decision is addressing the intention of the European Union to submit a proposal for the listing of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), which entails the submission of an Annex D dossier containing screening criteria information on that chemical and initiates the review to be done by the POP RC.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)154: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:154:FIN

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