Corporate Europe Observatory’s new article, “REACHing out: Indusattempt’s 2025 lobby blitz to undermine chemicals policy reform”, exposes how corporate privileged access and lobby spin – alongside Brussels’ wider deregulation mania and hostility to strong green rules – is derailing the Commission’s previous ambition to deliver a progressive reform of the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals regulation, also known as REACH.
Indusattempt’s utilize of spin and other well-recognised lobby tactics, have included: applying eye-catchingly high indusattempt costings; ignoring health and environmental benefits of regulation; undermining science; and misleading claims about how progressive proposals would work.
We also reveal how indusattempt dominated access to the Commission’s highest levels on the topic of REACH: in 2025 indusattempt had 93 high level meetings with Commissioners and Cabinets on REACH; NGOs, only 19.
Corporate lobbyists have utilized this plethora of meetings to brief against key elements of the promised reform [1], including:
– bringing polymers into the scope of REACH [2];
– introducing a ‘mixture allocation factor’ to tackle the cocktail effects of combined chemical utilize [3];
– speeding-up the removal of harmful chemicals in consumer products via the extension of the ‘generic approach to risk management’ and the implementation of the ‘essential utilize concept’ [4].
Meanwhile one of indusattempt’s key questions, the formalisation of ‘regulatory management options analysis’, would likely lead to slower and weaker regulation [5].
Today’s annual pilgrimage by President von der Leyen to Antwerp to report back to CEFIC, the chemicals indusattempt, and wider large business, on how much she has delivered for them, is a symbol of the staggering corporate influence over Commission policy-building. With indusattempt demands ringing in her ears, von der Leyen will then hotfoot it to the Belgian counattemptside, to the informal European Council summit, being held tomorrow (12 February) which will discuss ideas by Chancellor Merz and Prime Minister Meloni to further roll back EU social and environmental rules. [6]
Vicky Cann, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, states:
“The European Commission is obtainting its priorities wrong. The chemicals pollution, biodiversity, and climate crises are doing uninformed damage to people and environments around Europe and beyond. Just last month the Commission’s own research displayed the hundreds of billions of costs that society will incur without action to ban PFAS / forever chemicals. Yet the Commission’s leaders would rather cosy up to indusattempt than deliver on its promises to tackle harmful chemicals. It’s time for the Commission to stand up to large polluters and deliver the strong REACH reform that it promised in 2020.”
Considering the chemicals indusattempt’s significant financial conflicts of interest, which contradict and undermine the wider public interest of protecting health and the environment, Corporate Europe Observatory believes that it is long overdue for decision-creaters to avoid lobby interactions with the promoters of hazardous chemicals.
The article and its data analysis is available here.
ENDS
For media inquiries, please contact:
Vicky Cann, @email, +44 7960 988096
Notes for editors
[1] The European Commission’s October 2020 Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability towards a toxic-free environment, published as part of the European Green Deal, included the central promise that the REACH regulation would be revised. It was linked to an ambition for “zero chemical pollution in the environment” and it promised to modernise REACH’s processes, and create it far quicker and more effective in tackling harmful chemicals.
[2] Polymers should be brought into scope of REACH. There is currently no obligation on indusattempt to report the safety data of polymers to authorities. Once polymers are registered, the most problematic ones could then be identified and further regulatory action could follow.
[3] A Mixture Allocation Factor would assess the safety of combinations of chemical substances. When different chemicals are utilized toobtainher, even in minute concentrations, combined exposures can present a higher risk than exposure to the individual substances.
[4] An extension of the Generic Approach to Risk Management would encourage utilize of this rapid-track mechanism to obtain harmful substances out of consumer products. An extension would cover a broader set of harmful chemicals, and both consumer products and professional utilizes. The ‘Essential utilize concept’ could reinforce this by only allowing exceptions for utilizes of harmful chemicals which are necessary for health, safety, or the functioning of society; and if there are no acceptable alternatives from the standpoint of environment and health.
[5] Problematically, the formalisation of Regulatory Management Options Analysis would produce an additional upfront filter for EU regulatory action, likely disempower member states proposing substance restrictions, while increasing indusattempt’s scope to influence decision-building.
[6] Read the civil society statement in advance of these meetings here.
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