REACH after Brexit

The chemical industry is one of our most important exporters, with exports to the EU totaling €22.3 billion a year. Not surprisingly, the industry is worried about the consequences of Brexit on the UK’s status as regards EC Regulation 1907/2006 on REACH.

REACH was adopted to protect human health and the environment from the risks posed by chemicals. It applies to chemical substances used both in industry and the home and impacts most companies across the EU. 

A major part of REACH is the requirement for companies to collect information on the properties and uses of substances they manufacture or import at or above one tonne per year and register them with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). They also have to make an assessment of the hazards and potential risks presented by the substance. 

A registration package must be supported by a standard set of data which varies according to the amount of substance manufactured or supplied. Unregistered substances cannot be manufactured or supplied legally.

Complex & burdensome 

The REACH Regulations are very complex, taking up 526 pages, with 24 amending Regulations. The European Chemical Industry Council says REACH is one of the most burdensome pieces of legislation in Europe, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In 2018, the threshold for registration will reduce from 100t to 1t per annum. Most SMEs will then be covered by the regime and will have little option but to pay fees, often prohibitively high, to join “registration” consortia to gain access to information and register for REACH. So the removal of REACH might seem attractive to many SMEs.

Options available to UK

REACH will continue to apply during the two years it is expected to take to negotiate the terms of the UK’s EU exit. Future participation in REACH will depend on the outcome of the negotiations. Currently, the options if the UK leaves the EU include:

• joining the European Economic Area (EEA), with countries such as Iceland and Norway, which would allow the UK to be part of the EU’s single market, or
• being outside of the single market, probably with a free trade agreement such as Switzerland.

Members of the EEA have full access to the single European market but have to obey EU regulations such as REACH and other EU chemicals policy without having a say in their formulation.

If the UK took the option of being outside the single market, REACH would no longer apply. Not only would the UK have no input into EU chemical policy, but also there would be changes in the process of registering substances which could seriously disrupt chemicals trade.

UK chemicals would be imports from a non-EU country and registrations currently carried out in the UK and would have to be replaced by registration by importers or only representatives (ORs) inside the EEA. Registrations by UK ORs on behalf of non-EU manufacturers now account for more than 40% of UK registrations and would cease.

REACH includes two other processes, authorisation and restriction. Authorisation applies to Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) which cannot be sold or used after a given date, unless authorized for a specific use, or the use is exempted from authorisation. Restrictions may limit or ban the manufacture, sale or use of a substance.

It has to be emphasised that the options described above are based on the “out means out”, a position currently held by the EU. Much depends on the extent to which the EU sticks to this position.