ECHA is now operational

ERJ staff report (DS)

Helsinki, Finaland -- The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is now operational. In 12 months it has evolved from a few staff to a fully functioning organisation of 200 employees.

Speaking at a formal inauguration ceremony at the Helsinki City Hall, ECHA's Executive Director Geert Dancet said: “During the past year, ECHA has successfully met the targets set in the REACH Regulation and became fully operational as planned. The time lines for us have been ambitious, the number of projects challenging and the goals demanding. By meeting these, ECHA demonstrates the potential to become the most modern regulatory agency”.

From June 1 to December 1 2008, the Agency will face its first operational challenges. It will handle the pre-registration of substances and intermediates. About 200,000 pre-registration files are expected. At the same time, from June 1 2008 companies can start submit notifications, inquiries and registrations. Over 2000 such submissions are expected to arrive before the end of the year. Evaluation of registrations will also start this year and ECHA is expected to take its first evaluation decisions before the end of this year.

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Press release from ECHA