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7/10/2005.
Under the pressure of the chemical industry, the European Parliament's environment committee supported, on Tuesday 4 October, changes that would lower registration requirements for companies that deal with substances in volumes of 1-10 tons annually.
However, the MEPs left in place rules that would require the extended data requirements for volumes of 10-100 tons, which another parliamentary committee had recommended changing, and supported proposals requiring companies to replace hazardous substances with safe ones when substitutes are available. The 1-10 tons range concerns about 20,000 of the 30,000 chemicals which are to be assessed and approved under REACH.
An alliance of NGOs in the field of health, environment and consumer protection has criticised "the weak requirements on the provision of safety data" for chemicals in the 1-10 tonne range.
The group, which includes WWF and Greenpeace, said: "A REACH adopted on this basis would not deliver the health and environment protection the public expects, as it would leave thousands of lower volume chemicals without basic toxicity data and so would hamper the identification of potentially harmful chemicals, such as hormone disruptors."
The report voted on by the environment committee will now be forwarded to the full assembly for a vote scheduled on 15 November in Strasbourg. Amendments from two other committees (Internal Market and Industry) will also be put on the table for approval alongside the report. This means these amendments can go through in the final Parliament vote even though MEPs in the environment committee rejected them, leaving a broad range of options open on 15 November. Therefore, negotiations between the groups will resume in earnest within the next six weeks.
On 17 October, the European Trade Union Confederation will submit to the European Parliament a report by ETUI-REHS, its research institute, that the economic benefits of REACH for workers' health could total EUR 3.5 billion over ten years (health care savings over-shooting the costs of implementing REACH).
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