On 14 October 2020 the European Commission adopted the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. The Commission’s proposals, which will now be debated and negotiated with EU Member States and the European Parliament, set an ambitious new agenda for chemicals regulation within the Union as part of the EU Green Deal.

On 14 October 2020, after reported fierce debates, the European Commission adopted its Chemical Strategy for Sustainability, as a key component of its Green Deal – a comprehensive and ambitious approach to the application of chemicals regulation,

A virtual meeting of the EU’s chemicals Enforcement Forum on 22-25 June 2020 agreed that its enforcement focus for 2022, with preparation in 2021, would be integrated checks of products – mostly articles but also mixtures, and mostly expected to be consumer products.

DEFRA announced in April that the regular UK Chemical Stakeholders Forum meeting schedule for 24th June would be postponed, and that current work on the country’s Chemical Strategy would be suspended, as relevant staff were being moved to support priority work on Covid -19, on which of course everyone will wish them well.

In a clear case of politics being seen to trump the concerns of business, the UK government has announced on 7 March 2020 that it will withdraw from the European Aviation Safety Agency ‘EASA’ after the end of the transition period and 31 December 2020.

William Wilson from Wyeside Consulting attended the UK Chemicals Stakeholder Forum meeting in London on 15 January 2020.

William Wilson, Barrister of Wyeside Consulting Ltd, will be attending a meeting on the UK Government’s Chemicals Strategy in London on 18 September 2019, and we will report further on the outcome of that meeting.

In May 2019 in Oakland California a jury awarded a couple $2 billion in damages after finding that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused the couple’s cancer, and that the company had failed to issue adequate warnings.

The Chemical Industry Association (CIA) and its European counterpart CEFIC on 28 January 2019 issued a briefing on ‘Brexit: Preparing for a future <UK out of REACH Scenario> - What you need to know – Practical considerations to maintain trade post Brexit’.

Defra officials gave an update on the Department’s Resources and Waste Strategy at the meeting of the UK Chemicals Stakeholder Forum on 30 January 2016.