European Chemical Industry Council

The EU’s REACH proposal for improving regulation of chemicals sparked the largest ever industry lobbying campaign. Currently, most chemicals are introduced into the EU without safety guarantees, and without passing environmental or health tests. The chemical industry council, CEFIC, led the fight against REACH. German chemicals giant BASF played a key role by spurring a more radical and aggressive approach from 2002 onwards. They employed scare mongering tactics claiming that REACH would seriously undermine European competitiveness and conducted mis-information campaigns with flawed impact studies. They even marshalled political support from the Bush administration to back CEFIC’s scandalous campaign. Their success caused the European Commission to severely water down its own proposal. In its present form, REACH will not protect human health and the environment.

External links

‘Bulldozing REACH – the Industry offensive to crush EU chemicals legislation’, March 2005, Corporate Europe Observatory ‘Profits before Health and Environment – how the chemical industry is undermining European Chemical Legislation’, November 2005, Friends of the Earth Europe [1]