Chemicals Act - amendments 2018 and 2020

A key component of the Federal Law is the creation of the provisions required to implement the Minamata Convention on Mercury and to enforce the EU Mercury Regulation. This makes an important contribution to the global reduction of anthropogenic mercury emissions.

The amendment also adapts the law to the chemicals legislation of the European Union by repealing those parts of the Chemicals Act that still referred to directives that have since been replaced by more recent EU regulations.

Closely related to this, an ordinance of the Federal Minister for Environment was published in the Federal Law Gazette on 13 July 2018 (Federal Law Gazette II No 179/2018), which repeals, and in some cases modifies, significant parts of Austrian regulatory law in the area of chemicals. These include, above all, the Chemicals Ordinance, the content of which is meanwhile overlaid by EU regulations (REACH Regulation and CLP Regulation), as well as some older prohibition ordinances.

These two initiatives implement important environmental protection measures (mercury) and at the same time significantly improve the clarity of chemicals legislation and the transparency for legal users by repealing obsolete content.

Objectives

• Creation of accompanying regulations for Regulation (EU) 2019/1148 on the marketing and use of explosives precursors, Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 on persistent organic pollutants and Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 on market surveillance and product compliance;
• the appointment of bodies responsible for receiving harmonised information relating to emergency health response ("poison information") in accordance with Art. 45 in conjunction with Annex VIII of Regulation (EC) no 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP Regulation);
• the implementation of a provision of the Waste Framework Directive, according to which suppliers of products must provide information on substances of very high concern to the ECHA (European Chemicals Agency);
• more effective fight against illegal trade and other offences against the regulation of fluorinated greenhouse gases ("F-gases") in order to contribute to the Austrian and EU-wide reduction plan.

Content

• Amendment of the Chemicals Act (ChemG 1996)
• Amendment of the Federal Criminal Police Office Act (BKA-G) (“Bundeskriminalamt-Gesetz”)
• Amendment of the Biocidal Products Act (“Biozidproduktegesetz”)
• Amendment of the Law on Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases 2009 (“Fluorierte Treibhausgase-Gesetz 2009”)

Main aspects

Due to the EU Regulation on the marketing and use of explosives precursors, it was necessary to create the relevant accompanying regulations in the ChemG 1996. In future, restricted precursors will only be available to private individuals under very restrictive conditions (within the framework of an authorisation procedure). In this context, the BKA-G was also adapted to EU law.

Due to the requirements of the EU Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, it was necessary to revise provisions in order to harmonise them and to appoint the Poison Information Centre and the Umweltbundesamt GmbH (Federal Environment Agency GmbH) as the bodies receiving the harmonised information relating to emergency health response.

The new EU Regulation on persistent organic pollutants has been applicable since the entry into force on 15 July 2019. The relevant references anchored in the ChemG 1996 were adjusted accordingly.

As part of the objectives of the circular economy, it is a key concern to minimise the content of hazardous substances in products as far as possible in order to facilitate recycling and achieve a reduction in waste volumes. In this context, information on ingredients of particularly high concern that has to be passed on by suppliers to customers must be made available by companies to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in a database. This obligation was implemented in the ChemG 1996.

The EU Regulation on market surveillance and the conformity of products came into force in July 2019. The articles of this Regulation that are relevant to this amendment have applied as from 16 July 2021. As provided for in this Regulation, the authorities responsible for market surveillance are appointed in the ChemG 1996, the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Act 2009 and the Biocidal Products Act.

Based on experiences of recent years and on investigations carried out by the European Commission and various NGOs, there is reasonable suspicion that significant quantities of F-gases are being traded illegally (mainly imported from third countries). In order to counter this development, an adjustment of the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Act 2009 enables and makes it easier for the executive bodies to effectively combat illegal trade in certain products prohibited under EU law.

According to the Chemicals Act 1996, the Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK, now “Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Climate and Environmental Protection, Regions and Water Management”, abbreviation BMLUK) is the competent authority for the REACH Regulation in Austria. As part of the 2020 amendment to the Chemicals Act, the BMK and the authority responsible for employee protection, the BMAFJ, agreed to work together for the first time. This is intended to comprehensively ensure the enforcement of provisions of the REACH Regulation concerning employee protection in Austria. (See Chemicals Act Explanatory Notes General Part.)

Chemicals Act, Federal Criminal Police Office Act and others, amendment (Parliament) (in German only)