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Chemical Industry Fights Regulation in Europe |
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By Julio Godoy*
The
industrial lobby is putting the brakes on European Parliament debate
of a bill for regulating and ultimately eliminating certain toxic
chemicals. The U.S. government also opposes the initiative.
PARIS - More than seven years of debate within
the European Union has not been enough to produce rules for the
gradual elimination of the chemical products that cause most harm
to the environment and human health.
Discussion began in 1997, and in 2001 the European Commission --
the EU executive body -- presented a report on ''Registration, Evaluation
and Authorization of Chemicals'' (REACH), to identify and eliminate
the most harmful synthetic chemicals. This was followed by a draft
legislative bill for the bloc in 2003.
The bill was expected to pass the European Parliament this year
and be approved by the bloc's council of ministers of environment
and industry, but pressure from the private sector and from governments,
including the United States, put the process on hold.
Now, the rotating presidency of the EU, in the hands of the Netherlands
until Dec. 31, says a new consensus text likely will be put forth
in mid-2005, and come up for a vote by the Europarliament at the
end of next year.
The World Wildlife Fund (or Worldwide Fund for Nature, WWF) studied
blood samples from 33 people of three different generations (nine-year-olds,
their parents and grandparents), in England, Wales and Scotland,
and found contamination involving 80 different chemical products.
The report, ''Contaminated: The Next Generation'', was published
Oct. 8, and stated that the scientists found an average of 75 toxins
in the blood samples of the children, a similar number in their
parents' blood, and an average of 56 in their grandparents' blood.
Another blood sample study conducted in late 2003, also by WWF,
involved 39 deputies from the Europarliament, and found 76 toxic
industrial chemicals known to accumulate in human and animal tissue,
and associated with hereditary metabolic deformities.
Among the substances is the insecticide DDT (dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane),
a known carcinogen. Production and use of DDT has been banned in
Europe since 1970.
WWF campaign director Anthony Field told Tierramérica that existing
European legislation permits the use of chemicals patented before
1980 without new tests to determine if they are toxic. But ''all
those patented after that year must undergo numerous tests, which
makes the development of new products very costly and impedes innovation,''
he said.
REACH would speed up substitution of the older products, which are
also the most harmful, Field added.
However, the president of the Europarliament's environmental committee,
Karl Heinz Florenz, said in comments to journalists that the REACH
debate seeks to balance environmental and health concerns with those
of the chemical industry. He called on the European authorities
to ''listen to the United States.''
In April 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a cable
sent to the U.S. embassies in Europe -- a copy of which was obtained
by Tierramérica -- that his government was concerned that REACH
would be ''a costly, burdensome and complex regulatory system, which
could prove difficult, if not unworkable, in its implementation.''
''U.S. exports (to Europe) in most industrial sectors -- totaling
tens of billions of dollars -- could be impacted by the new policy,''
said Powell.
As such, he added, U.S. agencies ''believe it is important to reiterate
to the European Commission and EU member states our general concerns,
before the Commission finalizes its formal proposal in early May
(2003).''
According to European sources, the German chemical industry has
been at the helm of the lobbying efforts against REACH within the
EU, and, they said, its influence has led to an exaggeration of
the potential costs of the new regulations, minimizing their likely
positive impacts on health, the environment and even innovation
in the chemical industry itself.
The private consultancy Arthur D. Little, which since 2001 has maintained
contractual ties with the powerful German Industrial Association,
said in a study released this month that REACH would cost 2.7 percent
of the EU's gross domestic product. The European Commission estimated
costs one thousand times less.
Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, along with British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, used almost
the same words as Powell in a letter sent in September 2003 to the
European Commission: ''We consider the envisaged registration procedure
to be too bureaucratic and unnecessarily complicated.''
The three national leaders asked that REACH not be allowed to ''disadvantage
legitimate EU business interests in the global market by imposing
requirements which are not pertinent to protecting health and environment.''
REACH's original purpose was to create a central European agency
to monitor chemicals whose production surpasses one ton annually.
The registration phase is to be followed by an evaluation phase,
and finally the elimination of the most dangerous substances in
a period of three to 11 years, depending on the seriousness of the
chemical's impacts and the volume produced.
The companies affected by the measure would have the opportunity
to propose methods for controlling health and environmental risks,
or to use evidence to support arguments that the socio-economic
value of their products outweighs such risks.
Meanwhile, thousands of European citizens are left without protections
from chemical toxins.
In the blood samples, the WWF study found harmful chemicals that
are used in computers, carpets and rugs, clothing and kitchen items.
Some are considered carcinogenic, while others can cause mutations
or hormonal changes that affect the body's development or lead to
behavioral problems.
''The massive presence of chemical products in the immediate surroundings
of humans is intimately related to the increase of all kinds of
cancers,'' oncologist Dominique Belpomme, of the French health monitoring
agency, Institut de Veille Sanitaire, told Tierramérica.
Genevieve Barbier, another French cancer expert, explained that
the chemicals identified in the blood samples cause ''profound disturbances
in our cellular functions, and contribute to the development of
degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases,
as well as alterations in fertility and development.''
* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent.
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