Commissioner Roswall publicly announced in the course of a debate with Members of the European Parliament on 27 April that the Commission will not issue its REACH revision proposal.
The revision, which had been announced in the 2020 Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability had since been postponed several times. The Commission issued a first version of the proposal in September 2025, which was rejected by the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 26 September.
The decision follows extensive discussions with MEPs. The Commissioner stated that, at times where legal certainty and predictability are needed, it did not consider it adequate to reopen REACH.
Instead, as mentioned since a few months, the Commission will launch a simplification exercise, relying on the comitology procedure (i.e. amending the Annexes of REACH via secondary legislation, without the involvement of the European Parliament). She also mentioned initiatives addressing the enforcement of the Regulation, without providing further details.
In this regard, amendments such as the introduction of a registration requirement for polymers or a modification of the authorisation and registration procedures appear off the table, while the increase of the registration data requirements for low tonnage bands could still be proposed.
While in principle limited in scope, the precedent of the addition of new hazard classes to the CLP Regulation shows that amendments to annexes can be highly impactful.
The announcement appears in any event as a firm political response under an increasing pressure from the Member States, notably Germany, and the political parties.
