ECHA

If you haven't heard this phrase before, you certainly will from now on. There's one very clear piece of advice that every successful Registrant can agree on – start early! Everything is that much easier when you're not in a rush! You may have been one of the hundreds of companies who met together in Brussels at the end of September for the REACH Conference, where experiences from the last REACH deadline were shared and best practice exchanged.

ECHA and the European Commission jointly organised a REACH conference in Brussels on 23 September. The aim of the one day conference was to assess the lessons we have learnt during the 2010 registration process and the improvements that are needed for the 2013 registration deadline. ECHA also launched the ‘REACH 2013 - Act Now!' campaign at the conference and announced a new campaign webpage.

ECHA newsletter interviewed representatives of a stakeholder organisation and a company representing the soaps and detergents industry to get their impressions of the registration process, to learn how they managed the first registration deadline and to examine what they have taken in from their experiences.

Data sharing is a cornerstone of REACH and therefore mechanisms have been introduced to help companies share existing data before registration.

The European Chemicals Agency reached out to small and medium sized enterprises at the 2011 European SME Week Summit in Brussels at the beginning of October.

ECHA supports the data sharing process between registrants by removing outdated or irrelevant pre-registrations from its database.

In the future, four European regulations for chemicals will be dealt with under the same roof, as ECHA takes over the administrative responsibility for the revised regulations for biocides and Prior Informed Consent (PIC). There are many synergies between these two regulations and the processes for REACH and CLP. For that reason the Commission has suggested handing over the administration of Biocides and PIC regulations from the European Commission research centre JRC to ECHA", says Jukka Malm, Director of Regulatory Affairs at ECHA.

The new network aims at identifying good industry practices on drafting exposure scenarios and building a dialogue between supply chain actors to improve the protection of human health and the environment.

The final version of the ECHA guidance on the compilation of Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) was published on ECHA's website on 7 September 2011.

Independent and scientifically-based opinion and decision making is at the core of ECHA's existence.The management of potential confl ict of interest situations is therefore a key element of governance and crucial for maintaining the trust of stakeholders and citizens in the Agency's integrity. To increase the visibility of ECHA's eff orts in this fi eld and to further improve its approach, the Management Board, in its September 2011 meeting, decided to adopt an overarching policy for managing potential conflicts of interests.

In June, ECHA launched a new REACH Information Portal for Enforcement (RIPE). The web-based application provides inspectors with access to key information submitted by companies to ECHA. ECHA Newsletter sat down with Maciej Baranski, who is the product manager for RIPE and asked what RIPE is all about.

On 29 and 30 September, ECHA's Management Board held its 23rd plenary meeting and took a number of important strategic decisions. The Management Board adopted the ECHA Work Programme for 2012. It describes ECHA's activities in the year before the 2013 REACH registration deadline.

Executive Director Geert Dancet visited the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament for an exchange of views on 3 October 2011.

As of 1 September, Claudio Carlon has taken up his position as the new Head of Unit for Evaluation II (E2). He is Italian and holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry. He has over 15 years experience in the field of risk assessment of chemicals. He started his career at university and in a research and consultancy organisation where he coordinated the risk assessment team.

Then he moved to the European Commission JRC in Ispra to work on the EU harmonisation of risk assessment of soil contaminants, and later on REACH implementation. Mr Carlon joined ECHA from the very beginning in September 2007 and before the new appointment was team leader in the Directorate for Evaluation.

The Board of Appeal of the European Chemicals Agency published its first two final decisions on appeals against decisions adopted by ECHA under the REACH Regulation on 10 October.

The Member State Committee (MSC) could not find unanimous agreement based on scientific and technical arguments on a draft decision for a testing proposal.

Since 2010, ECHA has been introducing the cooperation with, roles and responsibilities of Member states to the European Union candidate countries and potential candidates. This has been part of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) project funded by the Commission.