REACH revision abandoned
The European Commission has announced that the revision of the Chemicals Regulation is postponed indefinitely. In a published address, 27th April, to the European Parliament, the Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall, indicated that REACH would not be reopened, but that routes were being looked at to simplify and modernise the regulation by comitology (involving Member States but not the European Parliament). Discussion has been ongoing on REACH revision for several years, including a public consultation in early 2022 (see pinfa Newsletter n°133). The Commissioner noted the need to improve enforcement of existing REACH requirements for products imported into Europe.
This suggests that various proposals are for now abandoned or postponed, including REACH registration or notification of polymers, new hazard properties (such as endocrine disruption), generic risk assessment based on hazard properties without assessing exposure, Mixture Assessment Factors aiming to assess risk of a chemical when used alongside others.
Cefic published in February 2025 a 10-point “action plan to simplify REACH” emphasising the importance of assessing and regulating chemicals based on analysed risk not only on hazards, the need for dialogue with industry and stakeholders to identify priorities for regulation and underlining issues of enforcement.
“Commissioner Roswall's address at a Structured Dialogue with Members of the European Parliament's Committee for Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI)”, Brussels, 27 April 2026 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_26_897
Cefic policy REACH page: https://cefic.org/policy/reach/
