On 19 July 2022, the European Commission launched a Call for Evidence for its initiative “Chemical Safety - better access to chemicals data for safety assessments”. This initiative, which is expected to take the form of a regulation, is part of the implementation of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) and the resulting “1 substance, 1 assessment” principle.
Context
The European Union has today a comprehensive framework for regulating chemicals, involving over 40 legislative instruments. These instruments often require assessments of chemicals by a number of regulatory bodies or agencies and at different points in time.
A The “fitness check” of the most relevant chemicals legislation (excluding REACH) found that there are shortcomings including in:
• The discoverability, accessibility and availability of good-quality and reliable data
• The sharing and re-using of data on chemicals across legislative frameworks
As part of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) under the European Green Deal, the Commission wants to move towards a “1 substance - 1 assessment” approach and implement the following three key actions as part of this approach:
• Remove legislative obstacles to the re-use of data and better streamline the flow of data on chemicals between EU and national authorities
• Extend the principle of “open data” and the relevant transparency principles from the EU’s food safety sector to other pieces of legislation on chemicals
• Enable EU and national authorities to commission the testing and monitoring of chemical substances as part of the regulatory framework when further information is considered necessary
