The latest 40 chemicals added to the Annex I of EU’s Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Regulation include 35 pesticides and five used as industrial chemicals. These include, for example, abamectin, difenacoum, fenpropimorph, dimethomorph, triadimenol and penflufen.

A chemical’s inclusion in Annex I means that companies need to make an export notification to ECHA before starting their exports (chemicals in part 1 of Annex I). Most of the newly added substances (38) also need an explicit consent from importing countries before the export can take place, as they are included both in part 1 and 2 of Annex I.

The status of two substances, cyanamide and warfarin, already listed in Annex I, is updated. Once the amendment enters into force, their exports will need an explicit consent in addition to export notification.

A subgroup of PFAS, perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), its salts and PFHxS-related compounds, is added to Annex V of PIC which contains chemicals with an export ban. This update follows the listing of the group as persistent organic pollutant in the Stockholm convention.

ECHA’s IT tool ePIC has been updated to reflect these changes and companies can now notify their exports of these chemicals.

Background

The PIC Regulation governs the trade of certain hazardous chemicals that are banned or severely restricted in the EU. It places obligations on companies that wish to export these chemicals to non-EU countries or import them into the EU.