People sometimes say that they don' like the EU, that they don't identify with it, that they don't know what it is up to or what laws are being passed. The eurosceptics will say "bloody technocrats from Brussels imposing their legislation...", the europessimists will go "huh, EU isn't very efficient is it?", et europhiles willl mumble "well, things will get better".
Well this week things did get better, with the new EU legislation on chemicals, known as the REACH directive, coming in to effect. This directive that was approved by the European Parliament last December aims to increase the number of potentially harmful chemicals to be analysed, by asking chemical companies to prove that they are not dangerous. This is something of a breakthrough as until now it was up to public authorities to prove that the products were harmful. Up until now, out of the 100 000 chemicals available to the EU consumer or industrialist, only 3000 have been tested, and some links have been demonstarted between certain products (such as weed killer) and cancer or foetal malformations, to cite the most common ailments. As a result of this directive, 30 000 chemicals should be tested in the next decade, and many more after that.
This might sound long-term and rather vague, but by making the chemical producers responsible for testing the potential harm of some chemicals, the EU s not only hoping to save the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of people, but is also contributing to the emergence of corporate responsibility. From now, the public authorities will no longer have to spend millions on proving that things are harmful, now private money will go in to developing products that aren't in the first place.
Of course, one will have to watch out and make sure that the labs testing these chemicals are independent and not financed by the chemical companies, but hopefully the EU will be able to exercise some kind of control over this. For a more detailed account of REACH and what it will do, there is lots of stuff available here and here
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3 commentaires:
Great news!
I wonder whether this directive will mean those chemicals that cannot be proven to be safe will be dumped on extra EU countries?
Or maybe it will have a globally positive influence? What do you think?
hey chook,
well one must first bear in mind that this directive is only binding for EU member states, and that theoretically at least any country that chooses to ignore the safety and health issues linked with a given chemical is free to do so. It is in fact already the case today that certain chemicals considered dangerous are used in parts of the world, while they are banned in the EU, or at least their use is strictly monitored.
What I think is interesting however is the pressure that this puts on the chemical companies. If they now know that potentially harmful chemicals will be banned, they will probably have an incentive to develop chemicals that aren't, and there is no reason that these shouldn't spread to the rest of the world, rather as our toxic chemicals did.
To summarise: the planet is already poisoned with unsafe chemicals, at least now there is someone who is saying they will not use them!
Hey miranda,
about the first para i have a question:
cafebabel is a great initiative, but is it good enough (4 ya) ?
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