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European Parliament published draft motion for a resolution on nanomaterials regulation
Published: Friday 23 January 2009
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) of the European Parliament has released a Draft Report on regulation aspects of nanomaterials (2008/2208(INI)). The report puts forward a number of bullet points forming a Motion for a European Parliament Resolution on regulatory aspects of nanomaterials, including the following positions:
The European Parliament:
- Is convinced that the benefits of nanomaterials can only be realised within a clear regulatory framework that fully addresses the very nature of potential safety problems relating to nanomaterials;
- Deplores the absence of a proper evaluation of the de facto application of the general provisions of Community law in the light of the actual nature of nanomaterials;
- Considers it highly misleading for the Commission to state, in the absence of any nanospecific provisions in Community law, that current legislation covers in principle the relevant risks relating to nanomaterials, when due to the lack of appropriate data and methods to assess the risks relating to nanomaterials it is effectively blind to its risks;
- Calls on the Commission to propose reviews of all relevant legislation by the end of 2009 to fully implement the principle "no data, no market" for all applications of nanomaterials in consumer products or in products leading to discharges to the environment;
- Reiterates its call for labelling of consumer products containing nanomaterials;
- Calls for potential patent rights to be limited to specific applications or production methods nanomaterials, and not to be extended to nanomaterials themselves, to avoid stifling innovation and to avoid creating a North-South "nano-divide";
- Considers that regulatory action on nanomaterials should also address nanomaterials that are created as unintended by-products of combustion processes, given the very high number of air pollution-related deaths every year;
Follow these links to find out more about ENVI’s activities on nanomaterials, or to download the full draft report.
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