Leaked documents reveal that the European Commission is about to abandon its pledge to ban all but the most necessary hazardous chemicals in Europe.

When the European Green Deal was introduced in 2020, the pledge to "ban the most harmful chemicals in consumer products, allowing their use only where essential" was one of its key tenets. In an update to the EU's Reach regulation, it was anticipated that between 7,000 and 12,000 hazardous substances would be banned from use in all marketable products.

Among these were numerous "forever chemicals" (also known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS), which accumulate in nature and human bodies and have been linked to numerous hormonal, reproductive, and cancerous conditions. But according to information obtained by the Guardian, the EU's executive is about to back down as a result of intense pressure from the continent's chemical industry and right-wing political parties.

The threat to public health and policymaking is causing internal unease due to the industry-led backlash. One EU official said: "We are being pushed to be less strict on industry all the time."

How does the EU plan to limit hazardous products? 

The Guardian obtained a leaked legislative document that outlines three options to limit the amount of hazardous chemical-containing products currently on the market by 1%, 10%, or 50%. The middle option is typically chosen by the EU.

Tatiana Santos, the head of chemicals policy at the European Environmental Bureau, said: “The EU’s failure to control harmful chemicals is written in the contaminated blood of almost all Europeans. Every delay brings more suffering, sickness, and even early death. The EU’s regulatory retreat could be the nail in the coffin of the European green deal, fuelling cynicism about untrustworthy elites doing deals with big toxic lobbies, unless the commission makes good on its promise to detox products and stand up to polluters."

The 77-page impact study, which was leaked, is a component of an update to the EU's Reach regulation on chemicals law, which is scheduled to go into effect by the end of this year and has a target date of January 13, 2023. The text may be changed, but according to officials, there hasn't been a significant change in the options being considered.

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According to the preliminary analysis, health benefits from chemical bans would outweigh industry costs by a factor of ten. Reduced payments for treating diseases like cancer and obesity would cost €11 billion to €31 billion (£9.4 billion to £26.5 billion) annually, while business adjustment costs would be in the range of €0.9 billion to €2.7 billion.

In a study of 13,000 EU citizens' blood and urine conducted last year, EU regulators discovered that 17% of European children were at risk from combined exposure to mixtures of phthalates, which are linked to developmental and reproductive illnesses. 92% of adults had traces of the endocrine disruptor and reproductive toxin bisphenol A.

Dr. Marike Kolossa-Gehring, the study's coordinator, estimated that in 2020, more than 34 million tons of substances with carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic properties were consumed in Europe.

A disagreement between the two commission departments tasked with drafting the new law—the environment directorate, which pushed for stringent regulations—and the internal market directorate, which balked at them, caused a delay in the Reach update.

How was the legal revision weakened? 

The official claimed that efforts to weaken the legal revision were aided by "a complete change in the wave of support for consumers and the environment" in Brussels as MEPs in EU president Ursula von der Leyen's European People's Party (EPP) grew uneasy about environmental reform.  The official said: “The feeling in the commission is almost like it’s a given that we cannot create too much trouble for the industry – irrespective of the public health benefits – and that companies suffer a lot from our regulations on chemicals, so we should try to make it easier on them.”

Several EU heads of state added to the pressure. French President Emmanuel Macron called for a “regulatory pause” in environmental law to help industry, while the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said in May: “If we are overburdening people with rules and regulations, we risk losing the public support for the green agenda.”

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In September, the EPP first suggested a regulatory moratorium to delay actions that would unnecessarily increase costs for businesses like Reach. It timed its move to coincide with the "permanent" downsizing in Europe announced by German chemical tycoon BASF, which it attributed to "overregulation."

As early as March 2022, Germany's VCI industry association requested that the chemicals ban be delayed. A related proposal to permanently ban chemicals, according to VCI director Wolfgang Grosse Entrup, was described as having "fatal" effects on German industry last month. “With each and every one of these substances that are banned in the EU, the risk of further emigration of our industry to less strictly regulated regions increases,” he said.

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