Opting for a truly harmonised scope in the RoHS Directive securing legal certainty and predictability for EEE producers

The RoHS recast proposal claims to simplify existing legislation and to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and administrative costs in line with Better Regulation principles of the EU. However, the RoHS recast proposal in our view fails to realise this objective, in particular since it would create legal uncertainty and worsen the current situation in terms of predictability for producers of electric and electronic equipment.

Therefore, Orgalime’s fundamental request to regulators is to ensure an EU legislation that is workable and enforceable in practice, securing legal certainty and predictability for European industries by supporting the following main proposals:

• Carrying out a representative impact assessment at EU level for any substantial change to the existing directive, such as for the far-reaching proposals for an open scope or new substance restrictions before the adoption of the recast Directive.

• Opting for a truly harmonised scope in the RoHS Directive itself that improves the current situation in terms of legal certainty and predictability for producers of electric and electronic equipment – an open scope does not contribute to clarifying remaining interpretation issues under the existing directive but introduces more questions than answers

• In any case, introducing a concise but comprehensive set of scope exclusions. In our position paper: Main priorities and proposals for further proceedings on RoHS recast of 19 July 2010, we explain the necessity for specific exclusions from the scope. We want to stress that it is of utmost importance that the generic definition provided will not be changed during negotiations processes.