Germany's chemical industry association VCI (Frankfurt) says that innovation rather than product bans should be the focus of the new EU chemicals strategy, which the European Commission intends to present in the autumn.

 

The committee calls for extensive legislative changes in chemical law. These include the removal of quantity thresholds, many additional tests of chemicals and animal experiments as well as blanket application bans without prior risk assessment.

 

Dr. Gerd Romanowski, Managing Director for Science, Technology and Environment in the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI): “The chemical-pharmaceutical industry supports a chemical strategy that promotes innovations for the implementation of the EU climate goals, the circular economy and digitalization. This requires stable legal framework conditions. The stronger autonomy of Europe that the EU Commission is striving for, for example in the supply of medicines and disinfectants, will only succeed if the required chemicals are also available in the future and the companies have planning security. Flat-rate bans are counterproductive here. "

 

VCI says that the new EU chemicals strategy should rely on strong use of the extensive REACH data, as well as on simplifications and efficiency improvements, instead of bans. Meanwhile, cooperation between European agencies and scientific advisory bodies on the evaluation of chemicals should be strengthened, VCI says.