Echa has decided on a number of deadline extensions to help companies during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, including those concerning the completeness check of REACH registration dossiers, substance and dossier evaluation, and authorisations.
The extensions will apply to deadlines until the end of May, the agency said today, adding that those companies concerned have been informed directly since the end of March.
"During these exceptional circumstances we understand that companies may be lacking human or financial resources or facing technical difficulties in meeting certain deadlines associated with Echa’s decisions," Echa said.
The extensions are:
- REACH technical completeness check of dossiers: companies that initially failed to provide a complete registration – and had a final deadline to submit information between March and May – will have an additional two months to finalise submissions;
- REACH revised completeness check: the extension of the technical completeness check to include the chemical safety report has been postponed from April to October;
- REACH confidentiality claims: a two-month extension for companies that have submitted a confidentiality claim and had a deadline between March and May to provide additional information;
- REACH draft decisions in substance or dossier evaluation: an additional 30 days for companies to provide comments. The draft decisions concern testing proposal examination, compliance check, follow-up dossier evaluation and substance evaluation. All other deadlines are unchanged;
- Pic (prior informed consent) notifications to national authorities: companies will have an additional two months until the end of May to submit notifications about 2019 imports and exports; and
- Echa invoices: payments due between mid-March and the end of April are now due by 30 May.
Echa also said that companies that have received a decision from the European Commission on authorisation applications, stating that a monitoring programme needs to be established with first measurements to be performed by spring 2020, need to contact national enforcement authorities "without delay" for advice on how to address the situation.
Recent developments
Before the latest announcement, Echa had already pushed back deadlines for some activities. In an interview with Chemical Watch last month, the agency’s head Bjorn Hansen said that Echa is "always ready to have a dialogue on a case-by-case basis" with companies facing challenges because of the pandemic.
And last week Cefic product stewardship executive director Sylvie Lemoine suggested the idea of fast-tracking certain types of registrations to meet urgent demand during the coronavirus crisis.
Questions have also been asked of deadlines and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU amidst the pandemic. While NGO CHEM Trust and trade body SMEunited called for the Brexit transition period to be extended, the UK’s Chemical Industries Association said "at the moment" it is "working towards" the expected December deadline and is not currently considering proposing an extension despite ongoing Covid-19 disruptions.