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SECOND MEETING OF FORUM STRESSED HARMONIZED ENFORCEMENT OF REACH

https://www.chemnet.com   May 16,2008
The Forum for exchange of information on enforcement met for the second time on 14 and 15 May in Helsinki. The Forum elected Ms. Kowalski (Germany) as its Chair and Mr. Blenkers (the Netherlands) and Mr Savov (Bulgaria) as the two Vice-Chairs. The Forum adopted its first Work Programme for years 2008-2010 and addressed several practical enforcement issues related to the entry into operation of the REACH Regulation 1 June 2008. In particular it advocated the importance of harmonised enforcement of ’no data – no market’ rule to ensure equal treatment of companies all over the EU. In this context, the Forum agreed that ensuring that preregistration is made correctly is an important first step.


The Forum discussed and adopted its work programme laying down the activities and work packages of the Forum for the years 2008 – 2010. The work programme includes areas such as enforcement strategies, coordinated enforcement projects and development of electronic exchange procedures for enforcement authorities in the EU. Three new working groups were established to execute the activities in the work programme and the mandate of two of the three former ones were continued.


The Forum also discussed aspects of enforcement of the”no-data, no-market provisions”, in particular the enforcement of pre-registration. The Forum members agreed that this important issue will be addressed by a dedicated working group and by coordinated enforcement projects. In doing so, the Forum followed the request of the Executive Director, Geert Dancet, who called for ”awareness raising” inspections over the coming months to verify the degree of compliance with pre-registration and to ensure that companies are aware of the deadline of 1 December.

The Agency informed the Forum on the results of the call for expression of interest to stakeholder organisations to participate in the work of the Agency. The members decided to hold annually a session where organisations selected from the list will be invited as observers.


The Forum also discussed the ways of cooperation of REACH enforcement authorities with the customs authorities.


Three newly appointed members and the observer from Norway participated in the meeting for the first time. For further details, see the links below.


The next meeting of the Forum is planned to be held in December 2008, when the five working groups addressing enforcement strategies, coordinated enforcement projects, access of inspectors to REACHIT, enforceability of draft Annex XVII and the Member State reports on operation of REACH will present the conclusions of their work.

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