Chemical Business Association calls for ECHA funding review

Funding levels for the European Chemical Agency (ECHAⁱ) need to be urgently reviewed, says the Chemical Business Association (CBA). It claims that ECHA will be massively over-funded because the Helsinki-based agency underestimated the number of REACHⁱ pre-registrations it would receive. Instead of the predicted 150,000 pre-registrations, ECHA has received 2.7 million.

The European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) also said that the general feedback it has received from companies involved in REACH is that fees are a significant problem.

CEFIC is pushing the Commission to look again at how the fees are managed. A position paper from BUSINESSEUROPE stated that phased payment of registration fees should be introduced in the short-term. In the long-term, fees should be revised downwards after the end of the first registration wave (December 2008 – November 2010).

BUSINESSEUROPE presented the position paper at the REACH stakeholder conference in Helsinki this month.

In addition, budgetary documents presented to the Board of Management of ECHA indicate that ECHA foresees to cash in €106m in 2010. Of this, €74m will be put in reserve for future expenditures.