Question 43693 — European Union

Summary

The REACH regulation (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals) aims to identify, evaluate and control chemical substances manufactured, imported and placed on the European market. It thus requires the distributor and user of chemical substances to submit, through registration, a file per substance assessing the risks and dangers of such a product. In this context, this regulation concerns essential oils now. Any revision of this impacts the lavender and lavandin essential oils sector. In its strategy for sustainability in the field of chemicals, the European Commission announced the need to revise the REACH regulation. To do this, it published a roadmap on May 4, 2021 which was the subject of initial discussions at the end of June 2021 within CARACAL, a committee bringing together the competent authorities of all Member States. This first stage of discussions is still ongoing, and the Commission has not yet published a legislative proposal. Under these conditions, the adoption of revised regulations will not take place before the 4th quarter of 2022 at the earliest. In addition, various public consultations will be organized during 2022 by the Commission on these developments in the REACH regulation and may be an opportunity for players in the sector to assert their position and present their proposals. The Government will stand alongside the sector to defend it and ensure its sustainability. This sector is part of French heritage. The revision of these regulations may raise concerns among lavender and lavandin producers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is working on this subject in close collaboration with the other ministries concerned, in particular the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Ministry of Solidarity and Health. Sector stakeholders will be regularly informed and consulted throughout the upcoming European legislative process, as was the case during the previous revision of the REACH regulation, so that the sector's issues are duly taken into account in the establishment of French negotiating positions in European forums. A meeting with members of the sector and the ministries concerned was held on Thursday September 9, 2021 and made it possible to define the actions to be taken to defend lavender production. The creation of an interministerial committee, chaired by Patrice de Laurens, regional director of food, agriculture and forestry Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, was announced during this meeting. This committee met for the first time on December 8, 2021 and brings together the ministries concerned and all representatives of the sector. A new meeting took place on February 3, 2022.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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