The revi­si­on of the CLP Regulation 

Will the CLP revi­si­on achie­ve its goal of making the obli­ga­ti­ons of mar­ket play­ers more prag­ma­tic and legal­ly secure?

Tog­e­ther with the REACH Regu­la­ti­on and POP Regu­la­ti­on, the CLP Regu­la­ti­on forms the core of che­mi­cals’ regu­la­ti­on in the EU. The CLP Regu­la­ti­on regu­la­tes the clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on, label­ling and pack­a­ging of che­mi­cal sub­s­tances. Fol­lo­wing its publi­ca­ti­on in the Offi­ci­al Jour­nal on 20 Novem­ber 2024, the revi­sed CLP Regu­la­ti­on will enter into force on 10 Decem­ber 2024.

Back­grounds

The Com­mis­si­on con­side­red that adjus­t­ments to the regu­la­ti­on were neces­sa­ry to keep pace with tech­no­lo­gi­cal and sci­en­ti­fic deve­lo­p­ments. In addi­ti­on to the adop­ti­on of new hazard clas­ses that have alre­a­dy been intro­du­ced and adjus­t­ments to clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on, the revi­si­ons of the label­ling and infor­ma­ti­on obli­ga­ti­ons are par­ti­cu­lar­ly relevant.

Revi­si­on of the label­ling requirements

The pre­vious regu­la­ti­ons on label­ling obli­ga­ti­ons reve­a­led con­sidera­ble room for inter­pre­ta­ti­on and cau­sed legal uncer­tain­ty among mar­ket play­ers. Not least becau­se of the num­e­rous feed­back from affec­ted com­pa­nies, cen­tral regu­la­ti­ons have been substantiated.

• For­mat­ting: the mini­mum requi­re­ments for label­ling (e.g. font size, spa­cing or colour) have been revi­sed and substantiated.

• Fol­ding labels: until now, the use of fol­ding labels was only per­mit­ted in jus­ti­fied excep­tio­nal cases, wher­eby the pre­re­qui­si­tes for the­se excep­ti­ons were part­ly unclear, or at least imprac­ti­cal. Fol­ding labels may in the future be used as an equi­va­lent alter­na­ti­ve, sub­ject to spe­cial design requirements.

• Digi­tal label­ling: the CLP revi­si­on defi­nes the frame­work con­di­ti­ons for digi­tal label­ling. Howe­ver, phy­si­cal label­ling is still requi­red, digi­tal label­ling can or may only be pro­vi­ded in addi­ti­on (except for sup­ple­men­ta­ry information). 

• Online tra­ding: In the future, label­ling ele­ments must also be indi­ca­ted for so-called distance sel­ling tran­sac­tions (espe­ci­al­ly in online tra­ding). In this respect, the CLP Regu­la­ti­on sub­stan­tia­tes the requi­re­ments of Artic­le 31 of Regu­la­ti­on (EU) 2022/2065 (‘Digi­tal Ser­vices Act’).

Infor­ma­ti­on obligations

• Powers of the ECHA: Infor­ma­ti­on on emer­gen­cy health­ca­re must be trans­mit­ted to noti­fied bodies (poi­son con­trol cen­tres) at natio­nal level. The CLP Regu­la­ti­on only pro­vi­des that this task can be taken over cen­tral­ly and throug­hout Euro­pe by ECHA; howe­ver, only if an EU mem­ber sta­te dele­ga­tes the­se powers to ECHA.

• Obli­ga­ti­ons of mar­ket play­ers: Amend­ments to Artic­le 45 of the CLP Regu­la­ti­on cla­ri­fy that importers, down­stream users and dis­tri­bu­tors may also be obli­ged to sub­mit infor­ma­ti­on to noti­fied bodies in accordance with Annex VIII Part B of the CLP Regu­la­ti­on (which has also been extended).

Con­clu­si­on

It remains to be seen whe­ther the CLP revi­si­on will make the legal frame­work for sub­s­tances and mix­tures more legal­ly secu­re and prag­ma­tic. In par­ti­cu­lar, the poten­ti­al for a prac­ti­cal design of label­ling and infor­ma­ti­on obli­ga­ti­ons through digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on and stan­dar­di­s­a­ti­on has not been exploited.