Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-03-Speech-3-011"
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"en.20080903.3.3-011"2
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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say that it gave the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection great satisfaction to see the compromise presented by Mrs Sartori on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. We believe that, with this solution, we have found a very good compromise and a very good solution, both for the chemical companies in the European internal market – most of which operate globally – and for consumers, and that we have also achieved a very good compromise for consumers with sensitivities.
That covers all the points relevant to the internal market. Thank you for your attention.
This was possible only because of the amicable, unwavering cooperation between the rapporteurs. I would particularly like to thank Mrs Sartori for the way she led the negotiations – including in trialogue – as in the end, there is no doubt that this was critical to achieving a solution that met everyone’s expectations.
I am happy with the result because I believe, from the point of view of the internal market, and of enterprises – particularly chemicals enterprises, whose experience of the European level in terms of REACH has not been 100% positive – that the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), as a universal guideline set up by the United Nations, can be implemented on the European internal market in a very non-bureaucratic way and with a practical orientation. This will bring direct competitive advantages on the internal European market for enterprises that are active on this market, because harmonised labelling is a significant step forward compared to the existing regulation, which still varies in some peripheral areas.
Commissioner, in the trialogue discussions, we also briefly discussed the fact that legislation on the transport of these consumer goods has still not been harmonised and that it would therefore be worth considering whether we should shift our focus to legislation on the transport of chemicals in the coming months.
Secondly, not opening the annexes was the right thing to do – and here I would like to support Mrs Laperrouze of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, with whom we also enjoyed excellent cooperation – because this move enabled us to prevent the discussion becoming like the one regarding REACH. Even though it meant that certain individual points that we would have liked to improve were missed out, with the wisdom of hindsight, it was indeed the right path to take.
Nevertheless, I would like to lend my express support to Mrs Laperrouze’s desire to create a transitional deadline in Annex 6 for the substances that were amended in that annex, because when we started the consultation, we could not predict that they would not be covered by the solution we decided on. Commissioner, I would very much appreciate it if you would comment briefly on this in your answer.
Users of chemical consumer goods are not, as a rule, conversant with the composition of these goods. When discussing the GHS, we therefore placed particular importance on implementing it in a way that would be practical for consumers. Although it was not possible to consider each individual case in detail, we found a solution – at least for the most common consumer goods, such as washing powder and detergents – that makes consumers aware of the quantities of chemicals these products contain, while also enabling people to use them in the future in the same way as they have done in the past.
Perhaps I can give you an example: it used to be possible to use washing-up liquid only in large bottles containing several litres. Increasingly environmentally friendly technology in the manufacture and use of these products has enabled the quantity of washing-up liquid required to be reduced further and further, so that now, the largest containers found in kitchens are just 300 ml or 500 ml.
No doubt the concentration of the chemicals in these products has increased but for consumers, this is compatible with the present GHS solution because we know that people use these products every day, so we did not need to overclassify them."@en1
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