On 1 June, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and Europe’s regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals  (REACH) marked their 10 year anniversaries. ECHA is tasked with delivering on the most ambitious piece of chemicals law in existence.

Cefic congratulates ECHA and its whole team for the progress made so far. Saori Dubourg, Member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF, Cefic Vice President and Chair of Cefic’s Product Stewardship Programme said: “The chemical industry will continue to work with ECHA and all other stakeholders to make sure that REACH becomes the global currency of trust for chemicals.”

ECHA and industry have been commissioned with a task that many thought impossible at the time. Nevertheless, working closely together with governments, today 14,000 substances have been registered. In addition, evaluation, authorisation, and restriction procedures are well on track. Cefic will continue to emphasise that science-driven decisions are in the best interest of all.

Cefic is working with ECHA to make sure that the next registration deadline of 31 May 2018, which will impact many small and medium sized companies, works well. This is a major effort on the part of all sides.

“We support the aims of REACH and we see it delivering successfully. Our industry is best served by rules that are clearly understood, smartly applied and definitely enforced. The best thing to do is work together to make REACH a joint success. ECHA, under the stewardship of Geert Dancet, is well served to deliver on this task,” said Marco Mensink, Director General of Cefic