Deal on REACH between MEPs and Council agreed
05/12/2006
At the sixth set of informal negotiations, delegations from the European Parliament and the Council came to an agreement on REACH, the draft regulation on chemical products. According to a statement, an agreement was reached with the Finnish Presidency on the entire REACH package.
The main points of the package agreed were that Parliament will appoint two members of the Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency and the executive director will take part in a hearing with MEPs before his/her appointment is confirmed; there will be an obligation to submit a substitution plan to replace them with safer alternatives—and where no alternative exists, producers will have to present a research and development plan; a clause was agreed, to be reviewed in six years, on the basis of the latest scientific data, with the inclusion of substances with endocrine disrupter properties among those which can only be authorised if the socio-economic benefits of their use is higher than the risk to human health or the environment, and if no safer alternative exists; intellectual property provisions have been strengthened with data protection extended from three to six years; a Duty of Care principle was agreed; and animal welfare is to be considered.
The agreement now has to be confirmed by the Member States’ representatives and by the full Parliament during the next plenary session in
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