Ahead of a meeting of the European environment ministers taking place in Brussels on 16 March 2023, members of the EDC-Free Europe coalition call on their governments’ support and leadership to urge the European Commission to present its proposals for the targeted revision of the REACH regulation without further delay. 

REACH sets out how the European Union registers, evaluates, authorises and restricts chemicals entering and in use on the EU market. It applies to all chemical substances produced and imported into the EU, from those used in industrial processes to the chemicals used in our clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, and more. 

However, since the entry into force of REACH in June 2007, less than twenty substances or groups of substances have been identified as substances of very high concern (SVHC) for their endocrine disrupting properties under this regulation. Even less have been taken out of the market. REACH’s regulatory process is very slow and places an undue high burden of proof for national and European authorities to be able to take precautionary actions.

The recent results of  the European wide human biomonitoring study, HBM4EU, sadly confirms the contamination of EU citizens by EDCs and other chemicals, and the adverse effects of these mixtures of chemicals on human health such as, among others, cancers, developmental disorders of children, reduced fertility, diabetes and obesity. 

The necessary legal changes to the REACH regulation are essential to uphold the commitments of the European Green Deal and achieve a toxic free environment.

EDC-Free Europe campaigners from all over the EU have written to their national governments to call for the targeted revision of REACH to be made public without further delay, considering any setback would jeopardize the possibility of the revision to be effectively considered by the European Parliament before the next European elections in May 2024. This in turn would lead to years of prolonged pollution of our health and the environment by endocrine disruptors and other harmful chemicals.  

Read the letters here: