BCF leads high profile delegation to

The BCF’s Tom Bowtell accompanied The RT Hon Jack Straw MP and his researcher Daniel Sleat together with Stephen Quinn from West & Senior (WSL) and Dr Michelle Ledward from Graham & Brown to meet with the Environment, and Enterprise & Industry Directorate-Generals, to the European Commission (EC) in Brussels, Belgium.

The delegation pressed the EC officials to reconsider whether Authorisation was the most suitable route for several substances currently on the Candidate List and asked them to pay more attention to the socio-economic and risk management options arguments up front, rather than as part of the Authorisation process. This is something that the BCF and other associations have been lobbying for.

Jack Straw made the case for keeping the chemical azodicarbonamide (ADCA) off the Authorisation List under REACH, given the more suitable (and equally safe) alternative of having an Occupational Exposure Limit (OEL), which is currently the case in the UK but not in the rest of Europe. Whilst no guarantees were made, it is believed that their views were understood and that the OEL route would achieve the same objective as Authorisation under REACH but without the significant costs and uncertainties to industry.