ECHA announces six month moratorium on publication of guidance documents

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHAⁱ) announced a six-month moratorium on the publication of ten guidance documents earlier this month. The moratorium is designed to give industry the opportunity to focus on preparing dossiers for registration and the CLPⁱ notifications by the first REACHⁱ registration deadline of 30 November 2010, rather than getting bogged down in the consultation processes. Industry has indicated to ECHA that work on guidance updates and new guidance in 2010 has taken a lot of effort and time to prepare.

The following ten guidance documents have been postponed until after the first REACH registration deadline of 30 November 2010:

Guidance on registration

• Amendment of Annex V guidance (e.g. on Genetically Modified Organisms)
• Amendment of Guidance on monomers and polymers
• Guidance on intermediates (clarification of the concept of strictly controlled conditions)

Guidance on Information Requirements & Chemical Safety Assessment

• Scope of exposure assessment
• Exposure based adaptation and strictly controlled conditions
• Exposure scenarios for waste life cycle stage
• Derivation of DNELs/DMELs from human data

Guidance on substances in articles

Guidance on Safety Data Sheets

Guidance on the CLP Regulation

• Application of the CLP criteria (labelling)

An ECHA press release can be found here:
http://echa.europa.eu/doc/press/na_10_31_moratorium_of_ten_guidance_updates_20100602.pdf