ECHA Newsletter | Onboarding new tasks

It’s been almost a year since I became the head of ECHA. And it has been as exciting, as challenging and as fun as I had hoped for. I am grateful to the staff of the secretariat, the management board, the board of appeal, our committees, the Forum and my predecessor, Geert Dancet, and many others for their patient help in getting me firmly into the job!

Three highlights are already clear to me: ECHA has started on a number of new tasks requested by the Commission; we have worked on a new strategic plan and we are reorganising the Agency.

This Newsletter provides more details on two of the new tasks that we are already in full swing on. In 2017, the Commission proposed to ask ECHA to implement the scientific and technical parts of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation, the EU regulation implementing the Stockholm Convention. The legislator is still negotiating the final text, but the Council and the Parliament are supporting. ECHA has already gained experience in similar tasks by working on its sister regulation, the Prior Informed Consent Regulation implementing the Rotterdam Convention. 

On adoption of the new Waste Framework Directive, we were asked to build a database helping to track substances of very high concern in the supply chain. The aim is ultimately to improve the information flow for recyclers. 

The Commission also asked us to develop a one-stop portal to find all EU legislation which applies to a specific substance. You’ll hear more about this in a later edition of the Newsletter.

To me, getting these tasks shows that the Commission sees ECHA as the chemicals agency – giving consistent scientific and technical advice across many regulations and directives and doing so more efficiently as all is under one roof. 

CONTINUE READING ON www.echa.europa.eu