EU Plans New Implementing Regulations

The EU Commission has paved the way for a new implementing regulation for substance registration. A draft of the regulation has already been prepared. The final form is currently being worked out. However, not as much progress has been made with a second implementing regulation that the EU wants to use to accelerate the pace of updates for registration dossiers, which has so far been slow. ChemicalWatch has reported on both regulations.

With the implementing regulations, the EU wishes to provide better orientation for companies. It will offer clearer rules for the following:

• How to calculate the tonnage of substances to be registered
• The cases in which reduced REACH registration requirements apply
• The obligations of registrants involved in the joint registration of dossiers

Because Article 22 of REACH leaves too much room for interpretation, the EU feels itself forced to take action. For example, three EU member states (France, the Netherlands, and Hungary) and Norway have called for such a regulation for some time. See our blog entry from September. The regulation should clearly indicate the conditions and timeframe in which dossiers are to be updated.

In a statement, CEFIC (see pages 8–9) makes clear that a decision on whether Article 22 requires an update must be made in individual cases. The chemicals industry does not see the need for an implementing law.

Do you need help with registering a substance? Please contact us at reach@kft.de.