Substance evaluation: Selection criteria for the Community Rolling Action Plan published

News Alert

ECHA/NA/11/23
Media enquiries: ECHA Press

The selection criteria for substance evaluation have been developed by ECHA in cooperation with the Member States and are now published on ECHA website. ECHA and the Member States are using these criteria to find suitable candidate substances for the first Community Rolling Action Plan (CoRAP), which will be adopted by ECHA in early 2012.

The Member States have preliminarily indicated an ability to evaluate around 40 substances in 2012 and 50 substances annually in 2013 and 2014.

Helsinki, 26 May 2011 - Substance evaluation aims to clarify whether a given substance constitutes a risk to human health or the environment in cases where insufficient information is available. Substance evaluation will be conducted only in relation to a selected number of substances which will be chosen according to risk-based criteria. The prioritisation criteria cover hazard information, exposure information and tonnage of substances including the aggregated tonnage from the registrations submitted by several registrants. The first set of criteria is adopted by ECHA according to Executive Director's decision taken on 26 May 2011. ECHA and the Member States are using these criteria to identify possible substances that may be listed on the CoRAP and evaluated by Member States. In addition to this the Member States can also propose substances to be prioritised at any time on other risk-based grounds too. In the future, this first set of criteria will be further refined by ECHA in cooperation with the Member States.

The selection criteria were agreed with the Member States in a Substance Evaluation Workshop organised by ECHA (23-24 May 2011) and are being used to develop the draft CoRAP list. ECHA will publish this draft CoRAP including the names of proposed substances by the end of October 2011 and the final CoRAP is planned to be adopted by the end of February in 2012 after an opinion of the ECHA Member State Committee.

During the consultation with the Member States, substances may be added to or taken off the draft plan. The final CoRAP will contain the name of the substances to be evaluated and the Member State responsible for the evaluation. The CoRAP will be updated annually due to its rolling character and will always cover a period of three years. A draft for the update will be submitted to the Member States by 28 February each year.

The listing of a substance in the CoRAP means that the Member State responsible is obliged to perform the evaluation within one year from the date of publication of the plan. As a result of the evaluation, further information may be required from the registrants of the substance to be able to confirm whether it constitutes a risk to human health or the environment. When the necessary information is obtained, the designated Member State will consider how to use this information in order to improve risk management of the substance, when appropriate.

ECHA will publish the summary proceedings of the workshop next month.