On 23 October 2012, ECHA published the draft update to the Community rolling action plan (CoRAP) for 2013 – 2015.
As discussed in our previous article on the same subject, under REACH, companies must collect data on the properties and uses of substances that they manufacture or import, and assess the hazards and risks. The information is submitted to ECHA in the form of a registration dossier, on the basis of which ECHA and Member States select substances that pose risks to human health and/or the environment for further evaluation. The prioritised substances are listed on the CoRAP.
The first CoRAP list was published on 29 February 2012. It set out:
- a calendar for the evaluation of prioritised substances (the "assessment year" i.e. the year, over a period of 3 years, during which the evaluation of a specific substance should be completed);
- the initial grounds of concern; and
- for each substance, the evaluating Member States. The Member States have 12 months to carry out the evaluation of the substances listed in the first year of the CoRAP, if necessary requesting further data from the registrants (via a decision issued by ECHA, on which registrants will have been given an opportunity to comment) to clarify any of the suspected risks.
CoRAP is a "rolling" plan: the list of prioritised substances included for evaluation during the second and third years may change as the list is updated before 28 February of each year.
The draft update for 2013-2015 lists 116 substances: 53 substances that were listed on the first CoRAP have been retained, and 63 newly selected substances have been added to the CoRAP list.
The draft plan was prepared in collaboration with the Member States based on harmonised criteria for prioritising substances, as well as national priorities. The substances on CoRAP were reportedly chosen mainly due to their potential Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) – properties, suspected endocrine disruption, or carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) properties, in combination with wide dispersive or consumer uses.
The draft plan contains the non-confidential names of substances, their CAS-and EC-numbers, the tentative year of evaluation, and the contact details of the proposed evaluating Member State. ECHA informs stakeholders of the progress achieved so that, whilst there is no consultation under the CoRAP procedure, they may nevertheless contact the evaluating Member States.
The draft CoRAP update has been submitted to Member State competent authorities and ECHA's Member State Committee, which will issue an opinion on the draft plan in February 2013. ECHA will adopt the final CoRAP update for 2013-2015 in March 2013, which will indicate the evaluating Member State for each substance. The designated Member States will have 12 months to evaluate the substance listed for evaluation in 2013.
The data collected through the evaluation process may feed into other processes under REACH, such as authorisation and restriction processes.
