ECHA

Looking back, it is evident that implementing REACH has been a learning process for all involved. Close cooperation with industry associations in designing and executing the work has ensured the success of REACH so far with the registration of large volume and hazardous chemicals. Such cooperation now needs to be adapted to the needs of downstream users and registrants for the 2018 REACH registration deadline.

 

Andreas Herdina.

The adoption of REACH in 2006 brought about a paradigm shift by placing the burden of proof for the safe management of chemicals on industry. This regulatory burden has translated into increased costs. On the whole, smaller companies are disproportionally affected by these costs, simply by virtue of economies of scale.

 

In February 2013, the SME Annex to the European Commission's REACH Review pointed to the economic burden of SIEF administration and to the need to provide more specific guidance on transparency, non-discrimination and fair cost-sharing in the framework of SIEF formation and operation. Various other studies empirically established the scope of this burden through surveying SMEs. The German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) investigated the experiences of German companies with REACH, and a study of the Netherlands' Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment put numbers to the costs borne by SMEs: costs related to data-sharing and SIEF management figured most prominently.

 

The European Parliament published a study on the consequences of REACH for SMEs, and a report from the Business Task Force of the UK Prime Minister drew attention to the costs of data-sharing that SMEs need to bear. Similar findings also arose from numerous other sources and publications in 2013. Dr Wolfgang Schnell from DR. SCHNELL Chemie shares his thoughts about smaller companies facing difficult times in this edition of the Newsletter.

 

Whilst these insights are not entirely new, they have drawn more attention to the costs of compliance and also revealed an interesting phenomenon. At the time of REACH's adoption, the legislator deliberately left SIEF management to be self-regulated by industry. However, the studies commissioned last year have exposed a need for public administration to get involved and address the patterns of unfair practice in SIEFs and by guiding fair cost-sharing for data and SIEF operations.

 

It was therefore timely for the European Commission to host a REACH SME workshop in Brussels from 10 to 11 December 2013. The workshop was dedicated to allowing SMEs to share their experience with the Commission and ECHA, to ventilate their ideas on best practice and on the support that would benefit them in complying with their duties and in exercising their rights and obligations within SIEFs. The workshop was mainly attended by managers of small and medium-sized companies, with a limited presence of large company representatives and consultants.

 

Four dedicated workshop sessions established facts related to the state of small enterprises' knowledge of REACH, their experience with joint registration and cost-sharing in SIEFs, the conduct of SIEFs and an in-depth discussion of specific themes that emerged during the course of the event. A presentation touched upon the competition law aspects of data-sharing.

 

The detailed two-day discussions brought to the fore aspects such as: providing support in preparing for the 2018 REACH registration deadline; means to ensure transparency in managing SIEFs; training SIEF managers; the quality of consultants; modalities of payment and cost-sharing for letters of access and data; "orphaned SIEFs"; treating one to ten tonne dossier submissions more favourably; market access and confidential business information; the arbitration of cost-sharing disputes; the duties of lead registrants; language issues; curtailing the danger of substances disappearing from the market; substance identity; and much more.

 

The output of the workshop was so substantial that ECHA and the Commission are drawing conclusions for its follow-up only after further analysis. Moreover, turning the valid ideas, proposals and discussion points into action will not fall to any single actor. Some conclusions are not only valid for SMEs, some are cost-related and others are related to promoting a better knowledge of REACH through specific communication and guidance or commonly endorsed recommendations. Even if public bodies can follow up on many aspects of the workshop, much will remain in the hands of industry associations and ultimately of companies themselves. Whatever support to duty holders is further provided, it will always be up to the duty holder to ultimately bear the responsibility for the quality of dossiers, the safe manufacture and use of the chemicals within their portfolio, and lastly the costs for complying with the regulatory requirements.

 

The Agency has already identified the preparations for the 2018 REACH registration deadline as a main area of activity in its Work Programme 2014. We are establishing a specific plan to this effect. This plan aims to spell out the means of support that we intend to provide to duty holders in the run-up to the deadline, paying special attention to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.

 

Additionally, ECHA will involve its partners in the Directors' Contact Group (DCG) as well as our accredited stakeholders to maximise this support as well as promote the tools, guidance and information that will help companies.

 

Since January 2010, the European Commission, ECHA and key industry associations have been collaborating in a Directors' Contact Group (DCG) that provides a platform for an exchange of views on providing support to registrants. Initially, the group was established for the 2010 and 2013 REACH registration deadlines.

 

Ahead the previous deadlines, the DCG, for example, offered support to registrants in difficult situations. The DCG parties identified exceptional scenarios where registrants were not be able to submit a fully compliant REACH registration, and ECHA then gave these registrants instructions on how to register by the deadline.

 

On 15 January 2014, the Directors' Contact Group met to adopt its third Terms of Work for the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2018. For this period, the Executive Director of ECHA, Geert Dancet, has taken over the chairmanship from the Director of the Commission's Directorate-General for Environment, Guus Borchardt. Under its new Terms of Work, the DCG members will not only coordinate the support given to duty holders for the submission of dossiers by the 2018 deadline, but also steer a collaborative effort in making information from the CLP notifications and REACH authorisation processes available to them for their registration needs.