Ukraine aligns its chemical policy with the EU

Since Ukraine became an EU candidate in June last year the country has been working on aligning its chemical policy with EU REACH. Last December the country published the law on chemical safety and management of chemical products in accordance with the EU legislation.

Furthermore, Ukraine has issued a draft resolution in accordance with the 1998 EU Directive on protection of employees from harmful chemicals where it lists hazardous substances prohibited for production.

Now, Ukraine is aligning its chemical regulations with the EU's CLP system. The country is set to adopt its first technical regulation on hazard classification, labelling, and packaging of chemical products this summer.

Ukraine's recent law on chemical safety and product management laid the groundwork for aligning with EU legislation, outlining basic hazard classification principles and general labelling rules. However, the proposed CLP Regulation takes it a step further by introducing comprehensive rules to protect human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals, ensuring their free circulation in the domestic market, and establishing a national list of approved hazard classifications and labelling elements.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources anticipates that most aspects of the Regulation will come into effect on 9 July 2023. However, certain elements, including identifiers for dangerous chemical products, alternative substance names, packaging and storage requirements, and requests for new information, are expected to be implemented by 29 June 2024.

To gather feedback, the draft CLP Regulation is currently open for comments via the WTO until 20 June, allowing stakeholders to contribute to the regulatory process.