CBI protests at new EU chemicals law

The Confederation of British Industry is today launching a campaign which will be seen by critics as an attempt to halt the anti-pollution lobby.

It is seeking major changes to planned European Union chemicals regulation aimed at forcing chemicals companies in the EU to pay the cost of testing more than 30,000 substances. The CBI argues that this could cost £6bn and lead to thousands of jobs being transferred to Asia.

The CBI is writing to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Margaret Beckett, urging her to ensure the extent and cost of the extra work imposed by the new regulation is significantly reduced.

To get the campaign under way the deputy director-general of the CBI, John Cridland, said: "Politicians must understand that these chemicals proposals fail the test of good regulation and must be redesigned.

"An extra burden on this scale will drive jobs away to countries such as China, which will not have to test even if the final products are imported into the EU. By pricing some chemicals out of the market these new rules threaten the research and innovation on which the future of our world-class chemicals industry depends.

"Business wants a clean, safe environment but any new rules must be workable, cost-effective and targeted on those chemicals that pose the greatest risk."

The CBI wants the legislation watered down in six ways. It says chemicals should not have to go through "pointless re-testing" where adequate data already exists. It should recognise protection offered by existing legislation.

Risk should be graded according to the circumstances in which a chemical is being used, the CBI says, rather than requiring downstream users to provide detailed chemical-use information.

Research and development should be fully exempted, as well as finished manufactured products, because their component substances will already have been tested.