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EU’s environmental authority speaks out on RoHS, other directives
By Drew Wilson, Contributing Writer -- Electronic Business, 7/11/2006
It’s safe to say that Stavros Dimas is the ultimate authority for the European Union’s environmental directives. As the European Commissioner in charge of environmental policies, Dimas is on top of what’s happening with the directives—WEEE, RoHS, REACH and EuP among them—that are changing the way the world’s electronics companies do business.
Dimas is a former Wall Street lawyer who also served in the Greek Parliament and held various Greek ministry posts, including minister of industry, energy and technology. Here he shares his views on various topics with ELECTRONIC BUSINESS, from the biggest challenges facing the worldwide electronics industry to how he sees RoHS being enforced.
Q: Do you believe the global electronics industry’s efforts to comply with WEEE and RoHS have met expectations so far?
Dimas: Some countries already have WEEE management schemes in place in which the electronics industry takes part. However, in many member states implementation is still in development and so further efforts can be expected.
Regarding RoHS, I’ve seen an active involvement by the industry in the implementation of the directive. Some companies invested in RoHS-compliant products already in the ’90s and are now setting the benchmark for information technology and telecommunications [ICT] companies worldwide. Overall, although we do not yet have only RoHS-compliant products on the EU market and the WEEE directive has not yet been fully implemented EU-wide, the active involvement of the ICT sector meets my expectations so far.
Q: What has been your biggest surprise in relation to the WEEE and RoHS directives?
Dimas: As you may expect with legislation of such a broad reach, there were some unintended effects. For example, as far as the WEEE directive is concerned, a potential problem regarding the financial obligations of producers emerged. We were alerted that international accounting standards appeared not to accept participation in a collective scheme as fulfilling the individual liability of the producer for the future management of his products, so companies risked having to set aside money to cover this individually as well—effectively requiring them to pay twice. Fortunately, my department was able to prevent this by making a clear statement to the accounting bodies that we consider producers are in compliance with the directive when they participate in an appropriate scheme for financing the management of WEEE.
Regarding the RoHS directive, I am positively surprised to see how widely it is taking effect. We see that not only businesses and their thousands of suppliers are following the legislation closely, but also many public authorities. This is a tendency which we can only welcome, as it will encourage the manufacturing and marketing of RoHS-compliant products.
Q: If you look at the RoHS directive well past July 2006, what additional substances—gallium arsenide, as one example—could potentially be added to the scope of the directive?
Dimas: Let me say that at the moment we have no plans to add any further substances, including gallium arsenide, to the scope of the directive. However, we are presently investigating, as requested by the directive, if medical devices and monitoring and control instruments should be included. We have launched a study regarding this question, the final report of which is to be presented on our Web site in the coming months. Of course such changes can only be done by amending the directive through the full co-decision procedure, which can take around two years.
Q: While RoHS enforcement will be determined by each member state, in a general sense how do you see the enforcement system working?
Dimas: It is true that since the RoHS directive does not foresee specific compliance procedures, enforcement is entirely in the competence of the member states. But they have been discussing how to do this since the directive was adopted, and last year they set up the RoHS Enforcement Bodies Network, which has agreed in principle that a “self declaration” by the producer will be accepted as proof of compliance. The self-declaration approach presumes that products conform to the requirements when put on the market. But if member states have serious doubts about the conformity of product, they will test it. The enforcement network is preparing a guidance document, which will explain the enforcement process, compliance documentation and issues related to sampling and testing.
Q: Which EU directive—current or future—will be the biggest challenge for the worldwide electronics industry as a whole to comply with in terms of time and resources?
Dimas: Besides the WEEE and RoHS package, there is likely to be some impact from the new REACH legislation on chemicals. For the electronics industry this will be very limited, according to one of the studies carried out. The efforts required for REACH by the electronics industry in terms of time and resources are not directly comparable with those for RoHS, for instance.
Our recent directive on energy-using products [EuP] is also potentially important. It will make manufacturers more aware of the energy consumption of their products without losing sight of other environmental impacts, thus helping them to improve quality overall. The EuP directive will be one of the easiest ones for industry to implement, as there will be long and product-specific preparatory processes involving open consultation with the affected stakeholders. When decisions are taken, the requirements will be the same across the whole of the EU market so manufacturers won’t need to deal with different national rules.
The additional effort will be minimal for the large number of companies which already integrate environmental aspects into their product design. For the rest, the additional effort required is likely to be compensated by increasing the competitiveness of their products.
Q: The European Semiconductor Industry Association in Brussels has criticized EU environmental legislation, particularly REACH, as being anticompetitive for Europe-based R&D because other world regions are free from REACH’s specific requirements. Does it have a point?
Dimas: No. REACH’s effect on European companies’ competitiveness is likely to be limited. The commission agreed to undertake further impact assessment work [on REACH] in addition to the very comprehensive one that was already attached to the commission’s proposal. One of the studies conducted assessed competitiveness and innovation issues in the inorganics, automotives, flexible-packaging and high-tech electronics sectors.
The results of this study are overall reassuring. The costs and impacts of REACH will be manageable and broadly in line with the commission’s original estimates. The impacts of the direct registration costs of REACH on the competitiveness of chemical suppliers, formulators and other downstream users in the electronics sector are likely to be limited.
[The EU has paid] special attention to the needs of industry and especially of small and medium-size enterprises. The registration procedure has been simplified, in particular for substances manufactured in the lowest tonnage range. There have also been other changes that are helpful to SMEs, like lower fees for all SMEs and a one-ton threshold for downstream users needing to carry out chemical safety assessments. All these changes will further reduce the costs.
