Which comes first--Big Toxics' profits or health?
Stricter European Union regulation of toxic chemicals is being jeopardised by corporate lobbying.
https://www.socialeurope.eu/which-comes-first-big-toxics-profits-or-health
Stop deindustrialisation! is the latest
hyperbole from the
Verband der Chemischen Industrie (German chemical-industry association) in pushing back against more robust regulation of toxic chemicals. A major lobby domestically and on the European level, one of its tactics is to shift the focus from the huge impacts of these substances on our health and the environmentand scaremonger over threatened competitiveness instead.
As well as demanding action to tackle high energy prices, VCI has in its sights the European Unions most important legislation in this arena,
REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), which it demands the EU institutions avoid tightening. Its also pushes to stem the tide of new regulation and prevent blanket bans of toxic chemicals.
Not fit for purpose
We have been here before. Twenty years ago, the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) used exactly the same rhetoric
called out at the time by Corporate Europe Observatorywhen it opposed the introduction of the original REACH rules. These would purportedly
de-industrialise Europe and result in two million job losses. In fact, since 2002 the EUs export of chemicals has
grown on average by a remarkable 6.7 per cent annually.
But REACH is no longer fit for purpose. The European Green Deal
promised action towards a
toxic-free environment, and the European Commission committed itself to revising the regulation, since the current rules are failing to get toxic chemicals
off the market at anything like the pace needed to resolve the pollution crisis.
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