The European chemical agency
The agency will play the central role within the REACH network. It will be established in Helsinki and must start its work latest 1st June 2008. Thus the EU commission has only one year to establish and realise the agency after REACH has come into force on 1st June 2007. This is no doubt an enormous job. When the agency starts its work it will be one of the few EU authorities which are allowed to make legally binding decisions on its own. Since the agency is the centre of REACH it guarantees the uniform realisation of REACH all over the EU.
There will be no National discrepancies in the interpretation of substance data or implementation conditions. E.g. in Poland REACH will be handled in the same way as in Italy, Portugal or Sweden.
The individual tasks of the agency are for example:
- Technical, scientific and administrative support of REACH, support of the EU commission concerning REACH relevant scientific questions
- Preparation of technical guidelines and instructions for the companies who have to apply
Altogether this is a wide ranging spectrum of tasks which can only be handled by highly specialised experts. Therefore it is planned to increase the manpower of the agency from approximately 100 staff members at the end of 2007 to approximately 400 people in 2010.
