EU Commission Delays REACH Review Report by Four Months

‘Internal procedures’ to blame, ‘non-REACH’ report slated for 2018

The European Commission expects to publish its report on the second five-year evaluation of REACH in October – four months later than planned, according to a source in the Commission’s environment directorate (DG Environment).

The report of a parallel review on the regulatory fitness of European chemicals legislation, excluding REACH, has been postponed until February 2018, the source said.

The Commission was expected to publish both reports by 1 June this year.

“We are working hard to try to secure publication in October,” they said, adding that the delay is due to “internal procedures beyond our control”.

The report on the first five-year REACH Review was delayed by eight months and finally published in February 2013. It stopped short of proposing any major changes but called for better registration dossiers and reduced burden on SMEs.

As with the 2013 Review, that of 2017 will take the form of a Communication and a Staff Working Document (SWD). Communications are statements on EU policy, while SWDs are internal documents that are not always publicly available.

Submissions and recommendations from NGOs, trade associations and industry will contribute to the SWD, together with member state reports and studies, the source said. The Commission Communication will contain recommendations for future activity.

Consultation comments
The online public consultation on the second REACH Review ran from 28 October 2016 until 28 January this year. The comments - 455 from 453 respondents - were published on the website of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG Grow) in March this year.

In their responses, many stakeholders flagged inefficiencies and gaps, for example, concerning articles containing harmful substances imported from non-EU countries that are not subject to authorisation rules.

Low industry compliance and weak enforcement have also been highlighted as trouble spots. The poor quality of registration dossiers remains a key issue to be addressed.

The consultation on the fitness of regulations, excluding REACH, closed in May 2016, and its comments were also published on DG Grow’s website in March.