ESBA - The Independant Voice for Small Business

SMALL BUSINESSES ARE DISAPPOINTED WITH THE EP ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE VOTE ON REACH

Brussels, October 10th 2006

On 10 October 2006, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee adopted its second reading report on REACH, the controversial chemicals legislation. Several aspects of the resulting report are harmful to SMEs.

A positive development was the Committee’s agreement that a company’s test data used for the registration of chemicals should be made available after 10 years, rather than after 15 years. The sharing of data lies at the heart of the ‘One Substance One Registration’ (OSOR) principle, which is vital if SMEs are to compete with multinationals. In addition, MEPs voted that costs should be distributed according to the volume of the substance produced within the Substance Information Exchange Forums (SIEF), ensuring that SMEs are not at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

However, MEPs refused to exempt substances produced in quantities of under 10 tonnes from chemical safety assessments. This development will cause additional red tape which is particularly burdensome for SMEs. Bureaucracy will be increased further by the Committee’s vote against a simplified procedure for registering substances with the Agency. This failure to limit the proliferation of bureaucracy undermines any attempts to pursue Better Regulation.

Another regrettable aspect of the vote was that there will not be an independent evaluation of opt-outs from the OSOR principle, increasing the ability of large-scale industry to avoid making data available to SMEs. Moreover, in a development which will be harmful to industry as a whole, the mandatory substitution principle is prevalent in the version of REACH adopted by the Committee. This is unworkable for many product types and will place demands on producers which will be particularly harmful to SMEs.

ESBA understands the need for an EU-wide chemicals policy, and appreciates support for SMEs on certain issues. However, ESBA regrets the decision by the Parliament to ignore the concerns of SMEs on numerous key points. ESBA urges MEPs to take these points into account when voting in Plenary in November. Failure to do so will lead to SMEs having to remove their products from the market. Moreover, the present version will harm the ability of European companies to innovate, and the EU will fall behind its global competitors.

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Note to the editor:

ESBA is a non-party political European group, which gathers member organisations from 22 European countries. It currently represents over 1.5 million small business entrepreneurs and is one of the largest organisations based on voluntary (vs. statutory) membership in Europe. ESBA cares for small business entrepreneurs and the self-employed and represents them through targeted EU advocacy activities. It also works towards the development of strong independent advocacy and benefits groups in European countries. For more information, please contact: secretariat@esba-europe.org

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Page last updated: 02/02/2007 4:53:46 PM