The Council of the EU, representing governments, and the European Parliament have reached a political agreement to update the operating framework of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). With this reform, the body will have its own regulations, a unified budget, and new tools to deal with the increase in tasks derived from EU legislation on chemical substances.
This review, which still needs formal approval from both institutions, responds to the progressive expansion of the agency's powers in recent years, in areas such as the assessment of substances like PFAS or microplastics and product safety.
Among the planned innovations, ECHA will have greater scope to organize and use its resources, will be able to establish a reserve fund to ensure its financing, and will be empowered to issue scientific opinions at the request of the European Parliament or Member States.
The new regulation also delinks ECHA's internal rules from the REACH regulation, the European regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemical substances that led to the agency's creation in 2007. Henceforth, all the powers it has assumed through various EU rules will be integrated into a single specific regulation.
In the budgetary sphere, the agreement replaces the three budgets the agency currently works with by a single one, in order to facilitate the distribution of resources among its different lines of activity according to needs.
Furthermore, a reserve fund equivalent to 10% of income from fees and charges is established, intended to absorb possible fluctuations in this source of funding without compromising the agency's work. However, the European Commission may adjust this percentage within a range of between 1% and 20% depending on financial requirements.
The text also modifies the composition of the agency's scientific committees to ensure it has the necessary number of experts given the increase in its workload. Member States will continue to be responsible for proposing the specialists who will be part of the committees for risk assessment and socioeconomic analysis.
Lastly, the co-legislators have decided to reinforce the rules for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest affecting staff, external experts and members of ECHA’s internal bodies, in order to safeguard the independence of its assessments and scientific advice.