Great Britain CLP likely to diverge from the EU

Published by Britain’s Health and Safety Executive, the first opinion on mandatory classifications under GB CLP aligns with the previous technical report in all 23 cases even if it hints at divergence from the EU.

In all the cases where there is potential for different classifications to those proposed in the EU, the agency found no significant impact. However, there is potential for different classifications in the case of five opinions on:

• Azamethiphos, an organophosphate insecticide currently under review as a biocidal active substance,
• Mancozeb and trifloxystrobin, two fungicides for crop use
• Cyfluthrin, insecticide approved for use as a biocidal active substance, and
• Beta-cyfluthrin, a pyrethroid insecticide for crop use.

These mandatory classifications would have impacts on moulding downstream legislation, affects if a particular product is available on the market, while the forked opinion as such can be seen from the product azamethiphos. It currently has no entry in the GB MCL list and warranted classification as a category 2 carcinogen, but the Health and Safety Executive in the UK (HSE) disagreed with this aspect of the committee’s opinion.

The disapproval of this biocidal use in the EU dwelled in the previous withdrawal of application for authorization and its use in GB is also still under review. For the other 18 Opinions, the technical reports agreed with the Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee (RAC), and the HSE plans to publish another 82 Opinions by the end of June 2022.

Under the current scheme, within six months of RAC publishing an Opinion on mandatory (harmonised) classification under EU CLP, the HSE have to publish a technical report outlining if it agrees with the scientific assessment. Concerns from many NGOs have been flourishing for this distinct UK chemicals legislation after Brexit, which bears the great potential to diverge from EU laws, and seems to pose great threats to the protection of human health and the environment.

Socio-economic factors are another point to take into consideration in the Opinion adopted by the agency on the proposed changes within 12 months of publication of the technical report, after which the HSE spends another 12 months to give feedback and suggestions on if the proposed classification should be implemented. Lastly, after all these procedures, the governors have three months to decide on the implementation of these recommended changes to the GB legislation as well as to include them in the Mandatory Classification and Labelling (MCL) list.