Any prospects of an early agreement on Reach (Registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals), the proposed new EU regulatory regime for chemicals, have been dashed.

Any prospects of an early agreement on Reach (Registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals), the proposed new EU regulatory regime for chemicals, have been dashed.

The European Parliament scrutiny of environment commissioner Margot Wallstr?m’s controversial Reach draft has now been postponed until after the Euro elections in June.

Agreement on a final version of Reach is now unlikely before 2006. Centre-right parties that dominate the Parliament insist that 10 states due to join the EU in May 2004 should have a say on the reforms.

Conservative MEP Caroline Jackson, who chairs the Environment Committee, has confirmed that there will be no vote on the Reach proposal in the lifetime of the outgoing parliament. ’It would have been quite wrong for the Parliament to vote on such an important issue without allowing those states who joined the EU in May to have their say on the matter,’ she said.

The first reading of the draft legislation had been provisionally scheduled for 19 April 2004, clearing the way for the EU Council of Ministers to hold its own debate on 17 May.

When the new Parliament convenes in July, members could opt to ’take over’ the Reach dossier rather than restart the procedure. This could allow a first reading around the turn of the year.

The extent to which Wallstr?m’s draft has fallen victim to in-fighting is confirmed by a sharp dispute as to which parliamentary committee should handle scrutiny of the proposals. The Environment Committee had appointed Italian socialist MEP Guido Sacconi as rapporteur on Reach, but the decision was challenged by the Industry Committee and Legal Affairs Committee. It was finally and formally agreed that the Environment Committee will after all handle Reach, but that it will consider recommendations from the Industry Committee and Legal Affairs Committee.

Arthur Rogers