Echa Fails to Allay NGO Concerns Over Non-Compliant Dossiers

A group of NGOs have met with Echa senior officials to discuss non-compliant registration dossiers and other concerns over the functioning of REACH, but failed to nail down agreement on how to tackle them.

The NGOs have been questioning Echa on its ten-year track record of implementing REACH, pressing the agency to address issues such as poor quality of registration documents submitted by industry and its failure to take enforcement action.

The round table discussion on tuesday this week – the day before the agency's tenth anniversary celebratory conference – was organised by Echa in response to a letter from 14 NGOs in November to executive director Geert Dancet. Another letter from NGOs, sent in March, sought answers from the agency on its approach to an "apparently considerable compliance gap" in registration dossiers and the lack of enforcement by "refusing" inadequate applications.

Echa was represented at the meeting by Mr Dancet, senior managers, officials from its executive office and the chairs of its Risk Assessment (Rac) and Socio-Economic Analysis Committees (Seac).

The NGOs attending the meeting were the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), CHEM Trust, ClientEarth, the Centre for International Environmental Law (Ciel), ChemSec and the European Trade Union Confederation (Etuc). The civil society representative in Echa's management board, Stefan Scheuer, was also present.

Although Echa and the NGOs "shared interest" in improving quality and compliance of registration dossiers, said Dolores Romano, senior policy officer at the EEB, "there was no agreement on how to achieve this. The question raised by the NGOs on the number of dossiers that are compliant with REACH requirements remains unanswered."

Echa acknowledged "a considerable amount are of rather low quality" – a point also made by Mr Dancet at the following day's conference – but said it lacked the resources to run compliance checks on all, relying instead on focusing on high-tier dossiers and grouping of substances, a spokesperson told Chemical Watch.

Other topics discussed at the meeting were:

> adequate control of risks; ‬

> reversal of the burden of proof;

> ‪how to deal with uncertainty in scientific opinions – applying the precautionary principle; and

> alternatives and socio-economic assessment under authorisation.

The low quality of information provided by registrants meant it was difficult to provide quantitative information on the level of adequate control, Echa told the NGOs. To address this, it would need dossiers that are regularly updated. "Echa and stakeholders should work on identifying ways to encourage companies [to do this]," it said.

Both parties agreed further discussions were needed to ensure the burden of proof is shifted to industry, "with poor quality dossiers leading to regulatory action rather than being a way of avoiding it," Ms Romano said.

There was also "common recognition" that the precautionary principle must underpin Echa's activities.

Echa has faced criticism from NGOs that it is not applying this in its opinions on restrictions and authorisations, and it is biased towards manufacturers of restricted chemicals rather than providers of safer alternatives.

The agency told the meeting the reversal of the burden of proof and the precautionary principle are "essential" and should be applied in practice in the opinions of its committees. There was room for improvement, it said, for example by increasing efforts to quantify uncertainty more explicitly.

There were discussions on ways to encourage providers of alternatives to engage more in the process. "Echa will examine the option of organising pre-information sessions for such companies," said the spokesperson.