A European Commission review of the 2004 paints directive has led to Brussels concluding it will not propose expanding the products covered by its volatile organic compounds (VOC) emission limits or tightening them for vehicle refinishing products.

Both topics were subjects of a mandatory assessment by Brussels. In a resulting report, the Commission said: “Even regulating a very wide range of different products would deliver only modest potential emission reductions and this would come with significant implementation problems, as well as with increased administrative burden and costs.”

It added the potential environmental benefits were hard to estimate because of unpredictable consumer behaviour. The review concluded there could be other ways of reducing VOC emissions adding, “amending the scope or limit values of the paints directive is not justified at this stage.” The report also highlighted a series of implementation problems with the existing law.

One was clashes with the 1999 VOC solvent emissions directive, which exempts, from VOC controls, certain professionally applied products. That means “paints and varnishes within the same product category (eg for wood coating activities) may be subject to different VOC requirements depending on their use. Ensuring that these paints are only used in compliant installations is challenging for the competent authorities,” said the report.

Additional EU paint and coating news:

The Czech Republic is being taken to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by the European Commission for failing to add biocide ingredient acrolein to its national list of active substances covered by Czech biocides legislation. Brussels says this breaches the EU biocides directive.

The International Chemical Secretariat – a global environmental watchdog – has added two coatings industry chemicals to its ‘SIN’ list of toxic substances identified as potentially harmful under EU chemical control system REACH. They are wood preservative pentachlorophenol and paint ingredient zineb. Visit http://www.chemsec.org/list/ sin-database

EU consumer protection network RAPEX has warned of an Italian market recall of an American-made tattoo ink ‘Eternal Ink’ for containing ‘O-anisidine’ branded carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic under Italian law.