In her article published on June 14, 2018, Anne-Sofie Andersson, executive director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), discusses the outcomes of the latest review of REACH released by the European Commission (EC) in March 2018 (FPF reported).
Andersson finds that the EC’s “16 action points” outlined following its REACH review are “simply loaded with plans to make even more plans,” but lack the “actual things to do.” Furthermore, there is little “measurability” in the EC’s action points, because “[d]eadlines are missing” and “vague wording is used,” resulting in a “very soft language for very important actions.”
Andersson points out that the EC’s review showed that “REACH has a real implementation problem” in that it is “moving too slowly,” and that the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) “explicitly” stated that “this is largely due to industry not providing enough chemical data.” The EC’s response to this is “yet another investigation as to why this is the case.” However, there is no need to investigate this, since it is already known that the reason for this non-compliance is the lack of incentives for compliance, Andersson claims. She explains that “the success of REACH hinges on industry information and the lack of it creates a severe bottleneck in the system.” She further observes that the EC “is reluctant to put its foot down against industry laggards.”
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Anne-Sofie Andersson (June 14, 2018). “The Commission’s to-do list following the REACH review lacks actual things to do.” International Chemical Secretariat
