CECE submits comments on PFAS to ECHA

As a forward-looking industry, we are contributing to the EU Green Deal and digital transformation. The PFAS restriction proposal may call the fulfilment of the Green Deal’s objectives into question and, if applied as is, would drastically affect our sector’s supply chains, halting the manufacturing of our products. The PFAS restriction proposal, if brought into force as is, would put the placing on the Single Market and the export of EU-made construction equipment in jeopardy for several years.

Many enterprises and their suppliers would be faced with dramatically high risks of economic or technical shutdowns and relocations overseas. CECE calls upon the European Commission to ultimately take the most proportionate measures to safeguard our industry whilst fulfilling the EU Green Deal.

As an interested party, CECE submitted the following recommendations to ECHA and the European Commission:

1. Concerned about the proposed 18-month period at odds with our needs, CECE requests ECHA to provide for transition periods of four to eight years. On principle, applications of PFAS should be allowed until the full-scale availability of technically suitable, commercially viable and irrefutably safe alternatives can be demonstrated.

2. CECE calls upon ECHA to grant the construction equipment industry the same derogations for the applications of refrigerants as the ones potentially granted to the automotive industry.

3. CECE calls upon ECHA to grant the construction equipment industry the same derogations for the use of PFAS in applications affecting the proper functioning related to the safety of construction equipment, its operators, workers/users, and goods in addition to proposing a 13.5-year derogation after entry into force.

4. CECE stands for an exclusion of fluoropolymers (including fluoroelastomers and polytetrafluoroethylene) from this restriction proposal or, at the very least, a 13.5-year derogation after entry into force for our essential fluoropolymers uses on O-rings, seals, coatings, hoses, clutch plates alongside brake friction disks. CECE invites ECHA to work on restrictions of high-risk PFAS instead of adopting the Dossier Submitters’ 'one-ban-fits-all’ approach.

5. In case of any fluoropolymers (including fluoroelastomers and polytetrafluoroethylene) restriction, CECE requests a general 13.5-year derogation after entry into force for all other essential PFAS uses on O-rings, seals, coatings, hoses, clutch plates alongside brake friction disks.

6. Having regard to the magnitude of this restriction proposal, CECE would like to invite the Commission to periodically exercise its implementing powers, conferred by Article 133 of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (‘REACH’), with the aim of reevaluating and redefining the duration as well as the scope of the derogations proposed or for reconsideration, following stakeholder consultations.

7. Considering that the revision of REACH is likely to take years, CECE calls upon the Commission to publish, at its earliest convenience, a Communication delineating the Essential Use concept and its methodology in future substance restrictions under REACH.

8. CECE stands for a cross-sector 13.5-year derogation after entry into force for uses of PFAS in Li-ion batteries.

9. Uses of PFAS in spare parts, remanufactured, refurbished, or second-hand products should benefit from a permanent derogation.