Hiring issues said to delay Reach Helsinki office

07 March 2007 23:10  [Source: ICIS news]

BALTIMORE, Maryland (ICIS news)--The European Commission (EC) is having difficulty hiring staff for the Reach enforcement agency planned for Helsinki, Finland, and may have to delay implementation of the new chemicals management programme, an industry official said on Wednesday.

 

Rich LeNoir, product stewardship manager for Basell USA, told a chemicals industry regulatory conference that the EC is not finding an adequate number of qualified job applicants from around the European Union (EU) to fill the 400-500 positions envisioned for the new enforcement agency.

 

Under the EU’s registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (Reach) programme approved by the EC late last year, the chemicals management system is to be implemented by a new environmental agency to be set up in Helsinki and scheduled to begin full operation by June 2008.

 

Reviewing Reach requirements for chemical industry executives at the GlobalChem conference on worldwide chemical regulatory issues, LeNoir said the EC is having difficulty finding qualified applicants willing to move to the far northern Europe city. Helsinki is known for its long winters.

 

“They may end up having to hire a lot of 25-year-olds who worked one summer for Greenpeace” but who lack knowledge and experience in chemicals and regulatory work, he said.

 

The Helsinki Reach enforcement office is to be ready by June next year to begin processing tens of thousands of chemical product and compound registrations that manufacturers around the world will be filing in keeping with Reach requirements.

 

“If they don’t get staffed up there in Helsinki, I imagine they’ll have to put back some filing deadlines,” LeNoir said.

 

Co-sponsored by the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (Socma) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the GlobalChem conference runs through Friday.

By: Joe Kamalick
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