EU Commission Work Programme (EU)

On 18 October 2022, the European Commission adopted its 2023 work programme (CWP), entitled ‘A Union Standing Firm and United’. It outlines the Commission’s policy initiatives for 2023, and how it would achieve the headline ambitions in Commission President von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines as set out at the start of her mandate.

The 2023 CWP frames the EU’s headline ambitions within the context of global challenges: in Ukraine, on energy, on the environment, and the fall-out of these developments on the global economy.

The 2023 CWP contains 43 new policy initiatives, eight suggestions to simplify regulation, and 116 pending “priority proposals” for legislation.

Re European Green Deal – the core Fit for 55 package from the 2021 CWP continues, added to this is a new planned revision of EU REACH and a call for binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems.

Note as part of EU Fit for 55, the European Parliament and Council already agreed on stricter regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in member states including less flexibility and more transparency – here.

Also, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a key element of EU Fit for 55 – here.

Note re UK REACH – the UK’s Defra department is exploring An Alternative Transitional Registration Model which would apply to Britain. Presently EU REACH applies to Northern Ireland.

The EU continues to exchange views on chemicals regulatory developments with the UK, including through the Specialised Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade set up under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that was agreed with the UK.

EU Law Revocation (Britain) UPDATE

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (I posted about recently) is in Committee stage, and the Public Bill Committee (the relevant Committee) yesterday has asked for submissions to it – here.

You can see from the link, the purpose of the Bill is to sunset (remove from the statute book) certain types of law by end 2023. In particular, the Bill will completely overhaul a body of UK domestic law known as “retained EU law” (REUL). This is a category of law that came into being as a result of the UK exit from the EU. It includes both Retained EU instruments, and certain domestic laws that gain their authority in a particular way.

Note: when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Tuesday 22 November.

As I have written in the last Email Alert to clients, we will commence listing the laws to be affected shortly, and this list will display on Cardinal Environment Limited EHS Legislation Registers and Checklists from Jan 2023 (earlier drafts will display earlier) and be subject to tracking through 2023.

A very considerable number of laws will be affected.

We expect most affected laws to be replaced with new laws, covering the same obligations. The tracking evident on Legislation Registers and Checklists will identify progress.

We do not expect that obligations will be removed altogether. If a law is removed without a replacement, we expect the obligations to be inserted by amendment into other pre-existing law, and the tracking will identify this.

Nonetheless, this is a complex process.

UK REACH (Britain)

On 30th June 2022, the various organisations involved published their rationale for prioritising substances within the UK REACH programme 2022-2023. This document is here.

Priorities are established for 2 types of activity in UK REACH:

• Restriction – a mechanism that can lead to controls on the use of a substance or group of substances

• Regulatory Management Options Analysis (RMOA) – analysis produced by HSE and/or the Environment Agency to understand the risks of using a substance, or group of substances, and make recommendations for managing them.

The following are 5 priorities –

1 Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – acting on the recommendations of an ongoing RMOA, due for publication in summer 2022

2 Intentionally added microplastics – an evidence project on identifying and managing the risks they pose

3 Formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers in articles – an RMOA to review the evidence base and evaluate a potential restriction

4 Bisphenols in thermal paper – an RMOA to review the evidence base and evaluate a potential restriction

5 Hazardous flame retardants – reviewing and updating the existing evidence on potential environmental risks, to feed into wider chemicals policy.

In addition, the HSE is running a number of calls for evidence in relation to additions to the Annex 14 (UK Authorisation List). Addition to the List means prior authorisation is needed to use, or place on the market, the relevant substance, after the specified sunset date.

Note – the DEFRA Secretary of State, together with Welsh and Scottish Ministers will need to authorise any decision.

The HSE link is here.