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EU delayed bans for dangerous chemicals: Ombudsman

Everyday products likely caused cancer, infertility and other harms because European Commission delayed bans recommended by scientific advisors

Legal deadline routinely broken over nearly two decades shows that business interests trump health and environment – NGOs

EU officials broke the law by delaying bans on dangerous chemicals over the course of nearly two decades, a European Ombudsman investigation announced today.

The European Commission takes 14.5 months on average to decide whether or not to allow companies to continue using banned chemicals, almost five times the legal limit, the Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly confirmed today. This constitutes maladministration

The delays allow companies to legally continue using substances that EU scientific advisors have discovered are a cancer risk, impact fertility or cause other serious harms. This likely amounted to thousands of tonnes per year used in a wide range of products. Those products remain an uncontrolled threat to human health, recycling streams and the environment, the non-profit organisations ClientEarth and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said.

ClientEarth legal expert Hélène Duguy said: “The Ombudsman’s investigation shows how reckless the EU Commission has been with chemicals rules. Yet those rules are there for a reason – to protect people’s health. This unacceptable behaviour undermines the rule of law and people’s trust in EU institutions. It’s now time that EU officials pay heed to the Ombudsman’s recommendations and prioritise public interest over the profits of toxic companies.”

EEB head of chemicals policy Tatiana Santos said: “Their scientists called for controls. The Commission dragged its feet. Why? The weakness of their excuses tells its own story. A lack of meeting rooms to make life and death decisions? Tell that to a family hit by cancer or infertility from chemical exposure. Every day of Commission delay let dangerous chemicals flow into products and poison the public. Europe should prove a greater sense of urgency and move away from them and towards companies innovating safer, green chemistry and a long-term, prosperous future.”

If the delays resulted from a culture of inaction inside the Commission, they are set to get much worse. A pro-business fever has swept Brussels in recent months, with deregulation and competitiveness the new mantra. Demands first proposed by the chemical lobby are pervasive in President Ursula von der Leyen’s new European Commission plans, while the EU Green Deal has wilted. Inspiring reforms to the main EU chemicals regulation have been shifted into a Chemicals Industry Package for “simplification” to reduce industry ‘burden’.

Simplification should mean faster chemical controls, ClientEarth and the EEB say. That means clearer timelines, simplified hazard identification and control, and an approach that prevents rather than cracks down on chemical pollution. A precautionary principle is already written into EU chemical law but is never applied, the Commission confirmed recently. Regulators and victims of chemical pollution should get more powers to make polluters pay, they say. 

The Ombudsman credited EEB research that first raised the alarm over the Commission delays. The 2022 study highlighted far wider problems than just the Commission. It found that it takes EU officials no more than three weeks to allow poorly understood chemicals onto the market, then around a decade to understand their dangers and another decade to ban or restrict those found to be dangerous, allowing widespread harms.

Scientists recently declared that chemical pollution has passed planetary limits. Daily exposure to a mix of toxic substances is linked to rising health, fertility and developmental problems, as well as the collapse of insect, bird and mammal populations. Throughout the last decade, polls have shown a high level of public concern about chemical threats.

Last year the Ombudsman told the Commission to stop other secretive behaviour on chemicals policy. A year later, it is yet to comply. Information it is trying to keep secret has been seen by the EEB. This shows  that direct costs to the chemical industry of banning the most harmful chemicals from consumer and professional products would be offset more than 10 times over by human health benefits.

ENDS

A media briefing summarising the threat from synthetic chemicals, the Ombudsman’s investigation, political context and case studies of the uncontrolled chemicals is available here.

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