ECHA progress on REACH – 10 crucial tests for 2020

REACH is the EU flagship regulation on chemicals. It is based on key EU democratic and environmental principles that need to be implemented in order to ensure that human health and the environment are protected against the risks posed by hazardous chemicals.

In our view REACH is delivering results towards achieving its protection objective, worthwhile and considered as a global model. However, the EEB has identified several areas that needs to be improved by ECHA, in particular on the implementation of the precautionary principle, assigning the burden of proof to industry, the ‘no data, no market’ rule, substitution of hazardous chemicals and transparency. Only the application of these principles will allow REACH to provide high levels of protection to human health and the environment and help to achieve the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) and the EU goal of a toxic-free environment.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has a crucial role as it is the main EU body in charge of implementing the REACH Regulation and is responsible for the management and the technical, scientific and administrative aspects of REACH.

This test aims to improve the implementation of REACH by enhancing ECHA’s adherence to REACH’s underlying principles.

We challenge ECHA with the following ten activities to be performed within the year. We consider the delivery of these activities as indicators of ECHA’s commitment and success towards implementing REACH’s underlying democratic and environmental principles.

We will evaluate and communicate its progress in one year time.