THERE is wide concern at the European Commission鈥檚 proposal to subject all chemicals produced in the European Union, or imported into it, to a rigorous regime of testing. Such is the alarm raised by the proposed Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemical Substances (REACH) policy that British prime minister Tony Blair, French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schr枚der have cooperated in a letter to EC president Romano Prodi.
The letter says that any future EU chemicals policy must be designed to ensure environmental health and consumer protection without endangering the international competitiveness of the European chemicals industry, as well as keeping animal testing to an absolute minimum.
They go on to add that the commission鈥檚 consultation document of May 2003 is positive about this. But they are concerned about the ideas being considered at the moment. In particular, the registration procedure envisaged is too bureaucratic and unnecessarily complicated. They are also concerned that the plan will be unworkable because REACH does not differentiate sufficiently between the handling of different substances. Consequently, it will be difficult to convince stakeholders that the EU has created an effective system for targeting and handling those substances which present safety or environmental concerns. REACH, they say, is still a long way from being the fast, simple and cost-efficient procedure promised.
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I think it is a case of the best being the mortal enemy of the good. By all means, let us have improvement, but not if it destroys a thriving European industry.
I ATTENDED the Fourth Latin America/Europe Encounter in Mexico in October. These meetings provide an opportunity for politicians, academics, diplomats and journalists to get together to forge closer links between Europe and Latin America. The issue of ancestors鈥� remains, 鈥減urloined by British imperialists and overdue for repatriation鈥�, in the words of this magazine (15 November 2003, p 3), burnt brightly. As the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has now published its Report of the Working Group on Human Remains, I asked the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, what she thought of the situation.
Jowell said that consultation on the DCMS鈥檚 report begins later this month, after which ministers will decide what action to take. She went on to say that before then, the government would be using the Human Tissue Bill to allow certain national museums, such as the Natural History Museum and the British Museum, to move human remains out of their collections 鈥� something they are presently barred by law from doing. Here the government is carrying out one of the working group鈥檚 recommendations. It is a move that the directors of the museums concerned will welcome, so that they can have fruitful discussion with those communities anxious to have their ancestral remains returned to them.
Personally, I am not in favour of this kind of repatriation. More people would be able to see the remains if they are kept in the great museums of London, Paris, Berlin or New York, than if they are re-dispersed. However, I sniff the parliamentary wind and sense it blows in favour of restitution.
