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Member States plan to evaluate 117 substances in 2017-2019

ECHA/NA/16/33

ECHA has prepared a proposal to update the Community rolling action plan (CoRAP) for 2017-2019. The Member States are planning to evaluate 117 substances, out of which 22 are newly selected. ECHA encourages registrants of the listed substances to start coordinating their actions.

Helsinki, 27 October 2016 – 24 substances are expected to be evaluated in 2017, 47 in 2018 and 46 in 2019. The draft plan has been prepared together with the Member States, taking into account risk-based criteria to select the substances. The final plan will be adopted in March 2017.

ECHA encourages registrants of the listed substances to start coordinating their actions and to contact the evaluating Member States. In particular, it is important that use and exposure scenarios as well as the exposure estimations are up-to-date and clearly documented within the chemical safety reports of the registrants. For the 24 substances subject to evaluation in 2017, dossier updates, where relevant, should be made before March 2017.

The draft CoRAP includes the non-confidential substance names, CAS and EC numbers, the tentative year of evaluation, contact details of the proposed evaluating Member State as well as a brief indication of the initial area of concern.

ECHA’s Member State Committee will discuss the proposal this week and will prepare an opinion on the draft plan in February 2017. Based on the opinion, ECHA will adopt the final CoRAP update for 2017-2019 and publish it in March 2017. From the publication, the Member States will have one year to evaluate the substances specified for 2017. Where necessary, they will prepare a draft decision to request further information to clarify the concerns.

The number of substances to be evaluted in 2017 is lower than in previous plans. Evaluations of 32 substances have been postponed to 2018 and 2019 because of pending compliance checks on those substances. To avoid overlaps, ECHA needs to conclude compliance checks on the majority of substances before their evaluation can start.

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Member States evaluate certain substances to clarify whether their use poses a risk to human health or the environment. The objective is to request further information from the registrants of the substance to verify the suspected concern, if necessary.

The evaluation may conclude that the risks are sufficiently under control with the measures already in place. Otherwise, it may lead to the proposal of EU-wide risk management measures such as restrictions, identification of substances of very high concern, harmonised classification or other actions outside the scope of REACH.