Chemical Watch: Why is a new chemicals strategy so important at this time?
Virginijus Sinkevičius: The European Green Deal of 2019 sets the goal for the EU to become a sustainable, climate neutral and circular economy by 2050, including through a move towards zero pollution and a toxic-free environment.
The chemicals strategy is the first concrete step in moving towards zero pollution, and an important building block of the transition towards a circular and climate neutral economy. Chemicals play a fundamental role in our everyday life. At the same time, those with hazardous properties can cause harm to human health, while chemical pollution is amplifying planetary crises, such as climate change, degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity.
This is why it is very important to have the strategy now. The REACH review and the various evaluations on chemicals legislation that we have completed point to the fact that our current legislation is fit for purpose, but that there are areas where we urgently need to step up action and to respond to scientific findings and citizens’ concerns.
This strategy aims to catalyse a shift towards a way of producing and using chemicals which is safe and sustainable throughout their lifecycle. We really have no time to lose, and we must start now to implement our vision to achieve our objectives by 2030 and 2050.
CW: How will the strategy help ensure Europe’s economy can adapt to the impacts of Covid-19 and Brexit and emerge healthy and competitive?
VS: The European Green Deal is our new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy. It was designed to respond to the climate and environmental existential crisis and turn these challenges into opportunities.
We have identified boosting safe and sustainable innovations as a key element for the chemicals strategy. This will be a win-win in terms of protection of health and the environment, and competitiveness of the EU industry, which can thrive in the global market by making "safe and sustainable" a new global standard.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also shown us that manufacturing and supply chains have become increasingly complex and globalised. The EU must strengthen its open strategic autonomy. We need resilient value chains and to be able to diversify sustainable sourcing for essential chemicals, in particular for our health (for example, pharmaceuticals) or for the technologies we need to achieve climate neutrality.
The strategy will promote the Union’s resilience of supply and sustainability of chemicals used in critical applications for society through funding and investment mechanisms. It also establishes regulatory and non-regulatory measures to ensure a level playing field between the EU and the non-EU industry, including through a targeted revision of REACH and by improving controls of chemicals and products which enter the single market.
CW: How do you think the strategy will make the European chemical industry competitive on the international level?
VS: The strategy establishes a coherent vision and set of actions where the protection of health and the environment goes hand in hand with innovation and competitiveness.
It addresses all the key issues identified in past Commission studies in terms of key gaps to innovation and competitiveness in the EU’s chemicals policy, namely:
- unsatisfactory interfaces between different chemicals legislation;
- insufficient information;
- lack of funding to support transformative innovation;
- lack of encouragement for co-operation within and between sectors; and
- lack of skilled workforce.
We believe the strategy fully addresses all those issues, in particular by simplifying and improving coherence of our regulatory processes, by enhancing transparency and predictability to all actors, and delivering a level playing field between the EU and non-EU industry.
Furthermore, financial incentives will be greatly mobilised to promote and support safe and sustainable innovations, as well as the greening and digital transition of the industry producing and using chemicals. Research and innovation funding, cohesion funds and recovery instruments will fully support this transition.
Finally, the regulatory predictability and simplification of regulatory processes will be an important point of reference for securing long-term investments and enabling our industry to reap the first-mover advantage.
CW: In addition to substitution of hazardous substances, how will the strategy drive innovation?
VS: Apart from the substitution of hazardous substances, we want to focus on the concept of safe and sustainable-by-design and non-toxic material cycles. We want to ensure that the chemicals our industry produces and uses are not harmful to human health and the environment, and pose no problems at the waste stage, or rather, the end-of-life or use stage.
The best way to achieve this is to design chemicals, materials and processes straight from the beginning in such a way that they are inherently safe and sustainable. In the first place, the chemicals that are likely to be toxic for people and the environment, persistent, bio-accumulative or mobile should be avoided. But their sustainability should be ensured by minimising the overall environmental footprint of chemicals throughout their whole lifecycle, in particular on climate change, resource use, ecosystems and biodiversity.
In the strategy, the Commission proposes to define criteria for the overall concept, together with stakeholders, to establish a targeted EU wide support network and to incentivise the development, production and use of safer alternatives through financial instruments, including the EU’s research and innovation programmes. For this agenda, we will need the engagement of all stakeholders. The frontrunners we already have who are set up this way should become a model for the others, so that safe and sustainable chemicals become the new EU market norm.
CW: How will the Commission ensure the strategy is truly transformational and that implementing legislation is not watered down, particularly through impact assessments?
VS: In order to make the implementation of the strategy a joint effort, we have announced that we will set up a high-level roundtable with all key stakeholders, including industry, the scientific community and civil society. This roundtable will discuss regularly how to achieve the objectives of the strategy and monitor how progress will be achieved.
We are fully aware that the ambition of this strategy can only be achieved by strengthening EU legislation. Any legal proposal will also have to follow the Commission’s Better Regulation guidelines, including impact assessments and consultation processes with stakeholders. However, the objectives and the vision are already clearly defined in the strategy, even if in some cases we will need to assess the best regulatory route that will allow us to achieve them.
CW: How is the strategy going to benefit downstream sectors?
VS: The strategy will promote the transition to safe and sustainable chemicals by supporting the industry throughout the value chain. Several retailers, manufacturers and other downstream users are already raising the bar and actively seeking to substitute hazardous substances chemicals. The strategy will help deliver these new chemicals and their uptake.
CW: Does REACH need to be reopened to implement the strategy and how will this be done?
VS: The actions we will take will only be successful when we strengthen EU legislation. In this context we will also look at how to update sectoral legislation and the REACH and CLP Regulations as the EU’s cornerstones for regulating chemicals. This will be done in the most targeted way possible, limited to achieving the objectives of this strategy.
We cannot say already now how the revision will be done, but we can say that we want to build and consolidate what we have proudly achieved so far, with the efforts of many, and improve it only where needed. With these revisions we will ensure, for instance, that sufficient information on chemicals manufactured or imported into the EU is generated, that substances of concern are rapidly identified and, where needed, phased-out from problematic uses.
CW: An initial draft of the Communication was leaked to the press in July. How does the published version compare and what trade-offs were made with DG Grow and DG Sante to win their approval?
VS: I want to stress that we very much regret the leaks and the speculations on the strategy in the past months. This strategy has been a joint effort of the whole Commission and I am proud to see the Commission stands united behind such a level of ambition on such a complex file, which touches upon various issues and so many pieces of legislation.
CW: Will the Commission commit to concrete actions to implement the strategy with a timeline?
VS: The strategy commits not only to a vision and strategic objectives, but also to concrete action and timing. The action plan of the strategy is fully detailed in the annex, including the timing that Commission’s proposals and follow up actions will be established.