Cefic statement on the debate in the European Parliament on the implementation of the EU Reach Regulation and use of non-tested chemicals in the EU

The EU chemical industry is committed to ensure all substances used on the EU market are safe for people and the environment and comply with all relevant EU rules. The safety of the substances we produce is our license to operate.

Marco Mensink, Cefic Director General: "Our companies have made a tremendous effort to compile all registration dossiers on time for the 2018 deadline. A huge amount of data on more than 20,000 substances that are on the European market has been provided, while ensuring that no supply chain disruptions occurred. Over 2 billion EUR has been invested to ensure compliance with REACH."

Thanks to REACH, Europe has the most comprehensive database of chemicals in the world.

The European Commission has recently made an independent review of the implementation of REACH. It has concluded that much progress has been made in the last 10 years – but also that the work is not finished and in some areas needs to go faster. The REACH review has made clear recommendations.

The chemical industry therefore together with the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and national authorities continues to identify data gaps and put in place the measures needed to fill those gaps. This is consistent with the focus of the next phase of REACH implementation, which is dossier evaluation.

One of the objectives of REACH is to minimise unnecessary animal testing and use alternative methods as much as possible. While compiling dossiers, it appeared that there were various interpretations on how to use these methods, which resulted in some of the mentioned data gaps.  The industry is working with ECHA and regulators in all EU member states on developing a common approach to dealing with alternative methods.

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