Commission’s U-turn on chemicals irresponsible

Today, MEPs voted in favour of delaying the application of new rules on the labeling of hazardous chemical substances by 12 or 18 months.

Last year, the EU adopted a revision of the Classification, Labelling and Packaging of chemical substances and mixtures (CLP), that sets out the hazard classification of chemicals and the communication of those hazards to consumers and workers. The revision addressed key problems found in the application of the law, such as labels not being sufficiently readable, overly long delays in the update of labels in case of more severe classifications and lack of safety information in advertising. The Greens/EFA group tabled an amendment asking to reject this new stop the clock measure, as it seeks to win time for a parallel proposal reversing those very same measures. This unfortunately did not receive a majority.

Greens/EFA MEP Majdouline Sbaï, member of the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety, comments:

“There should be no delays to allow for deregulation. The original revision of the rules had been proposed by the Commission and adopted, aimed at increasing the level of protection for consumers. It is unacceptable for the Commission to now turn around and propose to delay the very same measures , especially when the point of this delay is to reverse these measures in a parallel file.

“While the Commission claims that these simplification measures would ensure the same level of protection, this is manifestly untrue in light of the U-turn it proposes in parallel. Hazardous chemicals pose multiple threats to our children, our food and our future. It is irresponsible and irrational to leave them to the whims of deregulation.”