Eleanor Grimes of Lisam looks at some of the ways the UK is diverging from the EU post-Brexit
Divergence : The ongoing impact of Brexit on UK and EU chemical legislation
Eleanor Grimes of Lisam looks at some of the ways the UK is diverging from the EU post-Brexit
On 31 December 2020 , the UK left the EU and created its chemical laws by effectively copying what was legally in force on that date within the EU and just replacing the odd sentence to make it functional within the new Great Britain ( GB ) market .
I use the phrase GB because , due to the need for a free-flowing boarder between Northern Ireland ( NI ) and the Republic of Ireland , a secondary treaty known as the NI Protocol was put into place . This set of laws essentially requires chemical products placed on the market within NI to abide by the current EU legislation , with just slightly reduced requirements when also placing them on the market within GB .
There are many laws in both the EU and the UK that can impact products containing or composed of chemicals , but this article will mostly focus on the two cornerstones of chemical legislation : CLP and REACH . If you are placing chemical products on the market note there are some product specific legislations that may also come into play , such as those for biocides , cosmetics and detergents .
Soft v . hard changes
Since this initial implementation of chemical law both GB and the EU laws have undergone a series of changes creating divergence and consequentially new challenges for companies wishing to supply both markets . These changes are generally one of two types .
‘ Soft ’ changes are created when one market adopts a new update , which is then also adopted by the other later down the line . This has been commonly seen with many of the mandatory Annex VI substance classifications in REACH , which GB adopted months or even years later . Whilst these changes can be difficult to manage in the short term , they do generally resolve themselves over time .
The changes that are causing the most concern to industry however are the ‘ hard ’ changes , where one market choses to purposefully diverge from the other on . One area this has been seen frequently is within biocidal products , with some substances now having different mandatory classifications within GB compared to the EU .
CLP : Mistakes were made
In general , the bulk of the CLP regulation between the UK and EU has remained the same , but changes are coming through , and in some cases significant changes are in progress . Initially when CLP was brought into the GB legislation , the 14th and 15th Adaptations to Technical & Scientific Progress ( ATPs , the main mechanism by which the CLP regulation is updated ) were to be implemented , whilst Annex VIII covering the updated requirements for poison centres was not .
There were issues in both of these areas , as it later emerged that the ATPs had not been adopted , whilst the poison centre legislation had accidentally being included . The UK authorities have since corrected both issues ; initially the poison centre Annex VIII requirement was removed by the 2023 Retained EU Law ( Revocation & Reform ) Bill . Note
48 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981