Review of the REACH Regulation
REACH explicitly provides for reviews of different elements of the REACH Regulation. The scope of the reviews to be carried out by the Commission and their relevant timelines is set out in article 138 and article 75(2).
The legal text requires that specifically three reviews should be conducted by 1 June 2012:
- the review of ECHA (Article 75.2)
- the low tonnage review (Article 138.3)
- and the review to assess whether or not to amend the scope of REACH in order to avoid overlaps with other EU legislation (Article 138.6).
In addition, in accordance with Article 117.4, the Commission has to publish a general report by the same deadline (and then every five years) on the experience acquired with the operation of REACH, and the amount and distribution of funding made available by the Commission for the development and evaluation of alternative test methods This report needs to include a review of the requirements relating to registration of low tonnage substances (Article 138(3) and the information submitted by the Member States and ECHA in their respective reports on the operation of REACH (Art.117(1)(2)(3).
In this context, the Commission developed an approach based on 12 projects:
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1. Assessment whether or not to amend the scope of REACH to avoid overlaps with other relevant Community provisions. |
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2. Experience acquired with the operation of REACH |
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3. Nanomaterials in REACH registration dossiers and adequacy of available information. |
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4. Inspections requirements for REACH and CLP |
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5. The (nominal) risk caused by chemicals in 2012 compared to the 2007 (a follow-up of the baseline study of REACH) |
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6. Functioning of the European Chemical market after the introduction of REACH regulation |
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7. Impact of the REACH regulation on the innovativeness of EU chemical industry |
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8. Health and environmental benefits of REACH |
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9. Registration requirements for 1 to 10 tonnes substances and polymers |
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10. Review of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) based on Article 75 of Regulation (EC) N° 1907/2006 |
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11. The REACH contribution to the development, commercialisation and uptake of products of emerging technologies |
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12. Implementation and enforcement of restrictions in Member States |
These thematic studies are ongoing. Several consultants have been appointed by the Commission and some of them have launched surveys to help to achieve these projects.
The Nickel REACH Consortia has received in the past days the two following requests:
