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US wary on new EU chemicals plans, official says |
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| EU: February 12, 2003 | ||
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BRUSSELS - The U.S. administration is looking nervously at European Union plans for sweeping new regulations for the chemicals industry, a U.S. trade official said this week.
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The EU executive of the European Commission is expected to launch a proposal in April or May for a system to test and register some 30,000 chemicals. Some industry figures have said the proposed system would be too complicated and bureaucratic. "We are concerned that potentially this policy will have a trade effect," a U.S. trade official told reporters. Washington is sensitive to any EU legislation which can create barriers to U.S. companies getting into the European market. It has been considering launching a case against the EU over its effective ban on genetically modified foods. The official said that the proposed EU chemicals legislation, launched by the Commission as a white paper in February last year, was too wideranging, too detailed and with no sense of a priority in which chemicals should be tested. He said the administration backed the idea that the chemicals industry should be safe and environmentally friendly, but added: "We find it very difficult to see that this will actually happen." The Commission has said its chemicals policy will be aimed at boosting health and the environment, without hitting the competitiveness of the EU chemical industry. Chemicals is the EU's second largest manufacturing industry with some 40,000 companies and an annual turnover approaching 400 billion euros.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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