TURKEY IS PROGRESSING WITH PLANS TO ALIGN ITS CHEMICALS LEGISLATION WITH THE E.U.

Content addition date : 20-07-2013

Turkey has notified the draft regulation which is prepared to harmonize national classification, labelling and packaging (SEA) Regulation with The EU CLP (1272/2008 EC) Regulation to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

With this notification to World Trade Organization (WTO) and initiating the consultation on this platform, harmonization of the Turkish regulation on classification, labelling and packaging (SEA) with the EU CLP was taken a step further as it has been a long time since the draft of the regulation was ready for consultation with the local industry associations.

The notification of draft regulation that was announced on the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s web site on July 12, 2013, has been opened to comments from stakeholders for a term of 60 days from this notification and comments of stakeholders will be expected until September 12, 2013. The critical dates of (SEA) (Classification, Labelling, Packaging Regulation of Turkey) which is expected to be published on the official journal following this period in the last quarter of 2013 and come into force on the date of publication are presented below to your information.

It would be useful to mention as well that there are some differences between the EU CLP regulation and the (SEA) regulation of Turkey. Some of those differences are related to boron-based products. Under the scope of rightful objection of Turkish CA based on scientific data about these substances being classified as reprotoxic under EU CLP, this situation resulted in a different classification of these substances and are not classified as reprotoxic in the Turkish SEA Regulation.
In addition to this, the deadlines related to transitional measures applied to substances and mixtures are different and the transition period is shorter when compared to the EU CLP.

One of the main obligations under the scope of SEA, substances that are placed on the market ( either manufactured or imported) before 01 January, 2015, has to be submitting notifications to the C & L inventory of Ministry of Environment and Urbanization without any lowest tonnage threshold. The notification period for the substances on the market will start 01.01.2014 and after a term of one year will end on 01.01.2015. It is expected that this notification will be submitted online, with an additional utility added to existing Environmental Information System (EIS) of MoEU.

In order to avoid the ambiguity about the question raised for EU CLP as ‘’Can the O.R. submit a C & L notification?’’ Turkish CA mentioned the issue on the legal text per the clause that lets the suppliers to submit C & L notifications through a Legal Representative on behalf of their importers.

Critical Dates;
C&L Notification to Classification and Labelling Inventory: 01/01/2014- 01/01/2015
Repeal date of the existing SAE Regulation: 01/ 06/ 2016
The deadline for applying SEA to substances : 01/01/2015
The deadline for applying SEA to mixtures : 01/06/2016

Related documents are presented below.