European Chemicals Agency

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European Chemicals
Agency ECHA

ECHA logo
 

European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki
English name European Chemicals Agency
French name Agence européenne des produits chimiques
Finnish name Euroopan kemikaalivirasto
Organization type European Union Agency
status Establishment of European public law with its own legal personality
Seat of the organs Helsinki , Finland
Chair Bjørn Hansen (Executive Director)
founding

December 18, 2006

www.echa.europa.eu

The European Chemicals Agency ( ECHA , English E uropean Ch emicals A gency ) is one of authority EU after the Regulation (EC) no. 1907/2006 (REACH) the technical scientific of 18 December 2006, and administrative aspects of registration , Evaluation and approval of chemicals. It is based in Helsinki , Finland , and ensures, among other things, the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemical substances in a standardized procedure within the European Union.

ECHA started its work on June 1, 2007. The agency consists of several committees and a secretariat, which provides administrative, scientific and technical support to the committees. It receives the registration documents from the manufacturers and importers and checks the documents submitted. ECHA is run by a director ( Bjørn Hansen ) and currently has 558 employees. The highest steering body is the administrative board, which is made up of representatives of the member states, the European Commission , the European Parliament and interest groups. ECHA is overseen by the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs .

Functions

The ECHA

  • works with the authorities of the member states to develop opinions on the risks posed by the substances and on the socio-economic consequences of targeted risk limitation measures (bans, restrictions, authorizations),
  • forms a network with the authorities of the member states for the enforcement and monitoring of chemical safety,
  • maintains a central substance database and creates guidelines to support companies,
  • decides, with the consent of all member states, on the toxicological and ecotoxicological investigations to be carried out to clarify possible dangerous substance properties.

Objections to decisions by ECHA can be lodged with a board of appeal.

ECHA is also responsible for the implementation of other EU legal acts:

Databases

ECHA maintains various publicly accessible databases:

criticism

Research project of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment

In 2014, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment carried out the research project REACH Compliance: Data availability in REACH registrations in order to examine the quality of the data submitted by manufacturers and importers. In more than half of the registration dossiers that were checked, important information that could be used to assess the toxic effects on health and the environment was missing. 58% of the dossiers examined did not meet the requirements of the REACH regulation in at least one point. Manufacturers and importers often used substitute data on similar substances; Unsuitable risk assessments can lead to a high level of uncertainty regarding possible risks and harmful (long-term) effects from the chemicals in question. In the research project, however, it was not checked whether the deviations from the standard data used by the manufacturers and importers were sufficient and adequately justified.

Conflicts of Interest

In the context of a press release from the European Court of Auditors on October 11, 2012, it was announced that ECHA was not properly handling conflicts of interest . Although internal procedures and procedures for dealing with conflicts of interest have been put in place, “significant shortcomings” have been identified in relation to the agency's staff and members of the Board of Appeal. The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros , concluded in June 2013 that ECHA had taken appropriate steps to implement related proposals.

See also

Web links

Commons : European Chemicals Agency  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ECHA Staff Statistics, as of September 2019 , accessed on January 2, 2020.
  2. ^ DG Grow: About us. December 19, 2016, accessed July 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ ECHA: Information on chemicals , accessed on November 7, 2016.
  4. ↑ ECHA: EC directory .
  5. ↑ ECHA: Registered substances .
  6. ↑ ECHA: Pre-registered substances .
  7. ↑ ECHA: Classification and labeling inventory .
  8. ↑ ECHA: What is an Infocard? , doi: 10.2823 / 289368 , November 2015.
  9. ↑ ECHA: Biocidal active ingredients .
  10. ↑ ECHA: Chemicals subject to the PIC regulation .
  11. ↑ ECHA: Annex III list .
  12. ↑ ECHA: Dossier Evaluation Decisions .
  13. ↑ ECHA: Testing proposals .
  14. ↑ ECHA: Substance assessment - CoRAP .
  15. ↑ ECHA: List of substances of very high concern for approval .
  16. ↑ ECHA: Information about substances on the candidate list that are contained in articles .
  17. ↑ ECHA: List of substances subject to authorization .
  18. ↑ ECHA: ECHA-term - Multilingual Chemical Terminology by ECHA .
  19. ↑ REACH Compliance: Data Availability of REACH Registration, Part 1: Screening of chemicals> 1000 tpa (PDF; 6 MB); Federal Environment Agency (ed.), Berlin 2015, ISSN  1862-4804 .
  20. ↑ BfR Communication No. 022/2015 of July 22, 2015. Accessed April 4, 2016 .
  21. ↑ European Court of Auditors, press release ECA 12/39: Conflicts of interest not properly managed by the selected agencies, according to the auditors of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) , dated October 11, 2012 (this press release contains the main messages of the special report adopted by the European Court of Auditors The report is available on the website of the Court of Auditors www.eca.europa.eu).
  22. ↑ Press release No. 9/2013 Ombudsman welcomes measures by the European Chemicals Agency to avoid conflicts of interest , dated June 6, 2013, (PDF 109 kB).

Coordinates: 60 ° 9 ′ 30 ″  N , 24 ° 55 ′ 57 ″  E