After years of haggling between businesses and lawmakers, the European Parliament agreed Wednesday to tighter rules governing the use of chemicals in goods from clothes to cars, and sought to impose environmental standards that could cost companies billions of euros. Under the new law, some dangerous chemicals are likely to be banned from the European market and other substances used in everyday products will have to be registered in a central European Union database.
Parliament passed the law - one of the most complex and far- reaching EU regulations ever - after years of intense lobbying by the European chemicals industry, which feared the effect of more regulation on their profit, and protests from environmentalists, who sought more restraints on the industry.
The law puts the burden of proof on companies to show that industrial chemicals and substances used in everyday products are safe.
"It is a major step forward for public health, workers' safety and protection of the environment," said an Italian Socialist lawmaker, Guido Sacconi, who was in charge of steering the legislation through the EU assembly. "In the end, we want to get rid of the most dangerous chemicals while boosting research and development in Europe."
The law will compel businesses like BASF of Germany, the world's largest chemical company, to register with a new agency about 30 percent of the 100,000 chemicals used in Europe. All chemicals produced or imported in volumes of more than one ton a year will be covered. Companies also will be required to test chemicals and receive authorization for the most toxic substances, numbering around 1,500. Permission to use the most hazardous chemicals will require companies to outline plans to phase them out and develop safer substitutes. "This is going to set a standard across the world," said Marianne Thyssen, a Belgian member of the 25-nation Parliament that met in Strasbourg. "Businesses will pay a price for this, and it's not a small price. But we need consumer protection." Thomas Jostmann, an executive director at the European Chemical Industry Council in Brussels, which represents businesses including Akzo Nobel of the Netherlands and Solvay of Belgium, said: "This is going to be a huge burden, especially for small companies." In 2003, the European Commission estimated that the law - known as REACH, for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals - would cost businesses between 2.8 billion, or $3.7 billion, and 5.2 billion over 11 years. Other assessments put the cost at 12.8 billion. The Parliament approved the measures by a vote of 529 to 98 with 24 abstentions. The obligations under the law will be phased in starting in June. Producers will have to register the properties of chemicals with an agency to be set up in Helsinki that will have powers to ban those presenting significant health threats. Companies will be required to gradually replace the most high-risk chemicals - so-called persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances - where safer alternatives exist. If no alternative exists, producers will have to submit a plan to develop one.
Because of fears about potential job losses, the Parliament scaled back chemicals-testing requirements in the first reading of the law last year. About 13,000 substances, deemed of high concern, face automatic testing, but almost all tests were waived for little- used chemicals.
EU governments further scaled back the law that passed on its second reading in a bid to reduce costs for the EU's chemicals industry, which employs 1.3 million people in 27,000 companies.
In 2004, world chemical sales were estimated at 1.74 trillion, or $2.20 trillion, with revenue from the 25 countries of the EU accounting for 586 billion.
The registration process for all of the 30,000 chemicals was to be completed in 11 years. The direct costs of supplying safety information about a substance range from $20,000 to $400,000, depending on the volume of data requirements, according to the Parliament.
REACH replaces about 40 directives that govern the use of chemicals in the EU. In the past, companies could sell almost any chemical without being required to provide detailed health and safety information.
Environmentalists are still worried that under REACH, many high- concern chemicals will be allowed onto the market if producers can prove that they can adequately control them.
"This deal is an early Christmas present for the chemicals industry, rewarding it for its intense and underhand lobbying campaign," said the British lawmaker Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. Washington also has expressed concern about the law's effect on U.S. exports. But EU leaders said the law would set a global standard and called on other countries to adopt similar restrictions.
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