If you missed today’s ECHA annual update to the Environment Committee, you can watch the questions and answers highlights below.
Bjorn Hansen, Head of ECHA, made his 2nd Annual Presentation to the Environment Committee.
Autogenerated transcript
yes thank you very much mr. chairman
honorable members and all presents I’ll
give a very quick introduction to the
European chemicals agency without there
we go the European chemicals agency
works together with our partners which
means to a large extent Member States
the Commission Parliament and also our
institutional stakeholders represented
representing industry green NGOs unions
but also more specialized groupings like
animal welfare with the aim of ensuring
the safe use of chemicals we do that by
implementing a large number of chemicals
legislation they’re all put up on here
on the slide but I won’t run through
them with you now the objective is to
ensure safety and thereby we protect
workers we protect consumers when using
chemicals but also the citizen who is
unintentionally exposed to chemicals and
the environment unintentionally exposed
to chemicals through the environment leg
of our work with ever contribute to the
policy area as a biodiversity water air
soil just to name some our work is
mainly EU oriented but we also have a
number of tasks which contributes to the
international chemicals agenda through
our work on safety we also have a strong
contribution to the well functioning of
the internal market and thereby having a
fair and equal competition within Europe
and through that the safety and internal
market we contribute to having
innovative
chemicals industry and through the fact
that chemicals industry is the chem the
industry of industries we contribute to
innovation in manufacturing industry in
general and through innovation and
safety we also contribute to the
competitiveness of not only chemical
industry in the EU but also our EU
industry at large our agencies added
value in this bigger machinery of
protection competitiveness innovation
and internal market is that through our
implementation of these multiplicity of
chemicals legislation we can ensure
synergies between the legislation which
among other things means efficiency and
thereby gaining in speed and increasing
protection and contribution thereby more
to innovation competitiveness and
internal market but also and that’s
maybe for the citizen more importance to
the consistency between these pieces of
legislation so make to a large extent
synergies and consistency between
legislation is what we can contribute to
them the basis of our work is evidently
our staff our knowledge in our
experience but feeding that knowledge
and experience is the world’s largest
database on chemicals and that database
is one that not only feeds us in our
work in the chemicals agency but also
everybody in the Union who works with or
uses chemicals and in particular our
industry again supporting their
competitiveness and innovation
we have a number of very specific
competences data management assessment
of chemicals risk management of
chemicals and the assessment of the
socio-economic impacts of both use and
management of chemicals these
competences we put to use well knowing
that chemicals is an issue that worries
the citizen several Eurobarometer
studies but also national opinion polls
have shown this and therefore we try
actively to contribute to the and
address the worries of our citizen
through applying these competences and
increasing the general knowledge but
also the specific knowledge on chemicals
through that advancing the safe use of
them and finally doing this
transparently so that our citizens can
be assured that we are doing this with
the proper and strong scientific basis
our duty is not only to implement
effectively be your workhorse on
chemicals management on the scientific
and technical aspects it’s also to try
to be ready to be there when you want us
from a policy perspective to take action
so we also look forward and try to
position ourselves as an agency to be
ready should you need us and the next
two slides give you some reflections on
where we are in this thought process
clearly there has been an agenda of
circular economy which we see being
carried through and expect being carried
through through this legislating
legislative period and now is also a
Green Deal as being an overriding
priority from the Commission president
elects perspective what we see in a
context of certain
economy is that very basically
circularity is about circularity of
materials and all materials are made up
of chemicals so in a sense we are not
involved in the circular economy the
circular economy involves iike every day
simply by the fact that circularity x’
and chemicals is one and the same thing
but also chemicals in our chemical
industry and the innovation coming from
our chemicals industry will be a driver
of the solutions to many of the
challenge societal challenges that we
have so chemical industry is a solution
bringer to for example technical
solutions for climate change but at the
other side these solutions need to be
safe and that’s where again we as agency
come in we can contribute with our
knowledge and our competences in this
circular economy and in providing input
into the development of a Green Deal in
doing this we have reorganized our
agency and along a multiplicity of lines
but two most important for this
presentation is that we’re organized in
a way now that we much easier can take
on new tasks and integrate them
immediately into our current work of
other pieces of legislation so that we
can harvest the synergies and the
consistency faster than we could in the
past and the other element is that we
now look institutionally within the
agency not at a single substance at a
time but at groups of substances we’re
trying it out now we should be
operational by the end of next year to
really do this systematically what we’re
trying it out now our biggest asset is
what you see on this picture
is our staff and actually this is
approximately a third of them it’s in
the heads and the experiences of our
staff all working towards the
sustainable management of chemicals for
the benefit of our citizens
and the environment with those words I’d
like to finish my part of this five
presentations of the agencies thank you
Questions from Members
Martin HOJSÍK (Renew – Slovakia)
Autogenerated transcript
debate starting
with a car and Martin for six from we
knew thank you very much sir and it’s a
pleasure to have you here I think that a
Kaizen agency which has a really
important role not just in the
management of of chemicals and confirm
the perspective of the chemicals
industry but on one hand in protecting
the health and environment and ensuring
the substitution of hazardous chemicals
because I think this is something which
I have to admit it a little bit missing
the presentation is the very important
authorization process and the
substitution of hazardous chemicals and
this I see not only as a health and
environment but also as a very important
driver of innovation because this is
where we create a mechanism which
actually motivates people create
opportunities for businesses to invest
into research because they know they
should know that they will have a market
if they come up with a safe alternative
to for example a cancer-causing chemical
what I think it’s also important is that
we look into the coming years on how do
we bring things the chemical things
together because what we have is a
situation where we have a number of
other legislations and a bit of
piecemeal approach to managing for
example the endocrine-disrupting
chemicals in food contact materials or
in the cosmetics so there is a lot of
work ahead and lots of opportunities not
to mention the Green Deal as a really
big anchor point but I think also that
what is going to be important for it is
to have a Kaiser agency which is well
resourced
to be able to handle this because
without the strong and quality
regulators we will not really have a
competitive market I believe thank you
thank you so the contact person for eff
size simona bonifay but she’s not in
Brussels today so I give the floor to
you
Anja HAZEKAMP (GUE – Netherlands)
Autogenerated transcript
yes thank you very much
I have a question for FSI and one for
eka and let me start with eka mr. Hansen
we saw each other yesterday at an
interesting event on
endocrine-disrupting chemicals and
getting rid of any crime disrupting
chemicals is one of the biggest
challenge of our generation and of net
next generations to still progress is
much too slow and how can we speed up
the process of identifying and banning a
disease from all products in every day
life that exposes and would it be a wise
idea to introduce a grouping approach in
the assessment of chemicals with the
same properties to avoid regrettable
substitutions as we saw happening with
bisphenol A to B sonal s for example and
what other solutions should we be
looking at and for instance your
colleague of the environmental agency
asks for more resources which I fully
supports but does occur to need more
capacity to be able to do more faster
and determined action on this important
issue
Jutta PAULUS (Greens – Germany)
Autogenerated transcript
agency so I would like to know wouldn’t
it be easiest and fairest not to take
more money from the EU budget but just
to increase the fees especially for
those companies who have delivered
incomplete dossiers.
Pascal Canfin (Renew – France)
Autogenerated transcript
cocktail effect
because you the human body is not
fragmented in various agencies or
various molecules and substances so how
could you reconcile the fact that okay
it’s good to go deep molecule by
molecule or substance by substance in
the remit of your territory I would say
and the fact that at the end of the day
when we look at one health it’s one
health and what would be needed or
required for you from a technical
perspective also maybe from a policy
perspective perspective to move forward
on this very important issue which is
still I would say a new frontier if we
want to be serious with the real impact
the chemicals have on our body
Response from Bjorn Hansen
Autogenerated transcript
and I’ll take the ball from from bear
nuts and also get into a few additions
regarding cocktail effects mixtures of
substances but I’ll also start with
madam Nowak on her intervention then go
to a number of the more scientific
technical including mixtures and then
finish off with financing fees resources
etc start out with yes just to reinforce
we indeed as agency or my colleagues
here are it’s in our mandate it’s being
a public agency we of course are there
to serve you and we’re eager to do so
and in particular if you have or are
discussing legislative proposals which
includes modifying changing or adding
tasks which involve US agencies then
being involved early not in the policy
discussions but on what this means in
terms of resources timing possibility
feasibility we will be very eager and
unhappy to join on the the more content
issues I can start with public
consultation where indeed this is a big
challenge it’s in particular big
challenge in relationship to harvesting
comments ideas and information from the
citizen and having that in a
multiplicity of languages and still
having a very efficient system and there
the European Ombudsman has just come up
with a ten-point agenda for the agencies
to follow on how best to implement that
and I can say that we we will learn by
applying the Ombudsman’s recommendations
in order to increase the accessibility
to our public consultations and
contribution of information from from
around Europe on substitution yes my
presentation tried I tried to stay to
five minutes I went to eight I could
easily have spent three hours and
substitution is of course
one of the main drivers of both safety
and innovation substitution needs
predictability and it needs knowledge
and if we have predictability and
knowledge substitution can be driven but
fully agree that substitution is a very
important machinery within the chemicals
legislation to promote innovation and
thereby also promote safety speeding up
the identification of i dint of
endocrine disruptors and banning them
the banning bit that’s your your your
ballpark that of the Commission that of
council not mine
speeding up identifying endocrine
disruptors I can see at least three
angles which would help us in Iike one
is to create consistency and linkages
between legislation I don’t need it
between the legislation we implement in
Iike nor with F sir because we have a
very close collaboration there but it
would expediate our work if there would
be better linkages and consistency
between us and all the other pieces of
legislation effectively you identify a
substance as an endocrine disruptor in
one place it’s an endocrine disrupter
everywhere that would be very helpful
and useful
another thing is grouping this is how
we’ve rearranged as I mentioned our
agency that we will look at grouping as
basically everyday work we will not look
at an individual chemical and clearly
there’s a correlation between how a
chemical is structured and thereby
chemicals in a group and the effects
that they have and the intentional uses
that such chemicals have so that is an
area we’re looking into we’re investing
and we definitely see as a significant
potential in terms of identifing up the
identification of endocrine disruptors
finally it’s testing if you look at the
amount of information we have and the
amount of chemicals for which we need
information it’s evident that we do need
more in testing
and for endocrine identifying endocrine
disrupters it requires more testing on
animals but of course we should only
test where necessary to get this
information basis but that is an
activity that we’re taking very serious
and one that we have accelerated
significantly in the compliance check
but also the substance evaluation parts
of reach in order to do the necessary
testing to identify as many substances
as possible as endocrine disrupters or
conclude that they are not in the
current disruptors which is even more
important because then we know that
that’s a substance that does not have
that effect cocktail effects to add on
to what Barnard said that there are
effectively two generic types of
cocktail effects there’s the
unintentional cocktail that we get
exposed to and then there’s the
intentional cocktail that we get exposed
to and I believe that you were hinting
or meaning the unintentional the
chemicals legislation has a pretty
strong framework for ensuring that the
risks from the intentional cocktails
that we call mixtures are properly
controlled there’s still a lot of work
to do because it requires smooth and
efficient interfaces between for example
reach classification and labeling and
the occupational safety and health
legislation which by no means is there
yet but the system is there and we have
something to work on in terms of
unintentional mixtures following what
Vinod said the main thing is to know
what are they which unintentional
mixtures are we exposed to and I think
the the the big contributor to helping
that knowledge is a much more systematic
collection of existing data but also
steering of new monitoring data
collection both as human bio monitoring
but also monitoring in the environment
and in in in wildlife species that would
be a significant contribution but
clearly
absolutely no problem but but clearly
the the work on grouping is also
something that’s going to help we have
done like our colleagues in EPSA some
mixture unintentional mixture or
unintentional cocktail exposure work on
for example phthalates so the
methodology is being developed and if
it’s needed we can pragmatically
implement it the legal frameworks within
some of the chemicals legislation can
enable us to do something but it is the
information base as berra also was
hinting towards or explaining that it’s
better needed finally let me get to fees
and resources again fees that’s not our
business and we whether we should be
fully fee fee financed or not that’s a
policy decision because obviously it’s
an issue of weighing how do you want to
implement the palete polluter pays
principle versus the burden that that
fees puts on industry so that’s out of
our realm that’s a policy choice we do
struggle with having fee income because
of the unpredictability of it but that’s
a technical matter in a budgetary
context that I’d happily explain but
maybe not for now but we’re having quite
some problems with that we do not feel
in any way that we are in the pocket of
industry because they pay us fees so
therefore we see it from our perspective
as a choice for policy to decide how
fees should be be paid or not to wake up
on the budgetary side that the coin is
what do you want us to do and I’ll tell
you what we can do so if my presumption
is that you want us to fully implement
the actions in the reach review
accelerating compliance check to be
finished by 2027 to accelerate our work
on authorization to accelerate our work
on restrictions to accelerate our work
on biocides to accelerate our work on
grouping which are the political
messages we’re getting then we need
stable resources I can accelerate with
Abell resources and predictable
resources and now the status of fish of
the famous fish 32 which was indicative
budget values for the various agencies
does not give us that basis but clearly
the Commission made that proposal before
the new political priorities but if we
take the the Commission’s proposal to
financing agencies and including my
agency then that does not give us a
stable framework to implement the
priorities that you see for example in
the Commission’s fitness check on the
reach review nor does it provide us the
basis to contribute actively to any
adjustments that would come from the
fitness check of all chemicals
legislation except reach so mike lee is
to do the things that are on the table
now we need stable resources simply a
continuation what we have now evidently
inflation inflation adjusted and if you
want us to do more things than we would
want and need additional reeds resources
on on top of that thank you very much