ASD Key Messages on REACH Revision

The Aerospace and Defence Sector fully supports the intent of REACH to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment. Since the implementation of this EU chemicals regulation, we have always demonstrated our support and are committed in meeting all regulatory requirements that apply to our products.

From the various proposed options and changes communicated through past consultations and CARACAL papers, our sector is highly alerted by some elements currently under consideration, which may result in a heavy burden for our industry sector and therefore would lead to unacceptable competitive disadvantages compared to non-EU industry.

Therefore, the paper at hand shall emphasise our key messages on the REACH Revision, which we consider as essential for our strategically relevant industry sector, enabling us to further comply with all regulatory requirements while ensuring a level playing field.

These key messages are also supported by the CSS Space Focus Group, an initiative of the Materials and Processes Technology Board of the European Space Components Coordination (ESCC MPTB), which is a partnership of the European Space Agency (ESA), national space agencies, and space industry represented by ASD-Eurospace; the European Defence Agency (EDA) attends as an observer.

Comments on the overall REACH revision process

Through the entire REACH Revision Impact Assessment process, various options and change proposals have been communicated, often with sudden new considerations, sometimes even contradicting, and in many cases only understandable in a broader consideration taking other legislative revision processes into account.

Furthermore, we observed a lack of key details on criteria and appointed / legitimated bodies, which would be needed to clearly understand the decision-making process, in particular on essential use, industry-driven derogations and screening / assessment of alternatives.

There are numerous scenarios / options raised under different legislative workstreams currently in discussion (e.g. future Restrictions / Authorisation, Essential Use Concept, GRA for professional / industry uses), which makes it nearly impossible to judge on most likely / realistic industry impacts due to ambiguous combination variants.

Therefore, we require more clarity, certainty and transparency on the remaining steps of the EU COM impact assessment and decision-making processes when navigating through these major regulatory change proposals. These requirements are absolutely essential to be able to fully understand and assess the impact on our industry’s ability to comply with possible future requirements in a timely manner. In general, sufficient time must be allowed for the industry to prepare for and adapt to new regulation, so as to ensure that the sectoral constraints such as safety and airworthiness are fully considered.

Key messages on the reform of authorisation & restriction process

Industry needs to retain the possibility to apply for authorisation / derogation. Sectorial derogations / upstream applications are considered necessary. It also needs to be ensured that existing legal exemptions in REACH, e.g. for defence according to Article 2 (3) or for fuels in closed systems according to Article 56 (4d) are maintained in the REACH Revision.
Simple processes such as generally applicable derogations for a well-defined scope are strongly recommended. In this context, the A&D sector needs a fast-tracking route for “essential use” as a real simplified possibility for granting derogation / authorisation to facilitate implementation and compliance in the whole supply chain.

The “minimum exposure route” shall also be applicable to obtain derogations / authorisation.
The extension of the authorisation scope to listed SVHCs in articles (as stated in CARACAL paper CA/45/2022 of 22 June 2022), is a major concern as it would have damaging effects on the industry (detrimental to maintaining long lifetimes of A&D products in support of EU circularity objectives). It would adversely affect stocking or importing of articles as a compliance & business continuity strategy, when timely substitution is not possible due to challenging technical and certification constraints imposed by airworthiness standards. Furthermore the requirement for authorisation of substances in articles would lead to severe problems for the maintenance of non-EU (US) civil and military aircraft due to non-availability of affected spare parts. There could be particular issues where certain parts are not foreseen to be needed (e.g. to support legacy products) and therefore authorisations are not in place when such parts then need to be used. In the same context, the strong dependence of the EU’s A&D industry on non-EU supplies would increase the impact significantly because EU importers simply have no influence over the SVHC content, especially when design authority lies with Non-EU companies of imported products essential to our supply chains.

Also, the stated “acceptable loss of performance” part of the “technical assessment” (in CA/45/2022 of 22 June 2022) is not considered as an acceptable approach for chemicals which are used for safety relevant A&D products. For those applications, the performance of alternatives has to be at least equivalent!

Key messages on the essential use concept

We wish to emphasise that it is crucial that the end product / application is included early in the assessment process to identify essentiality; the essentiality of the use of a substance cannot be appreciated without considering the end-product / application.

A clear definition of “essential use” including recognition of our strategic sector that relies on specific chemicals where we do not have alternatives, is the correct way to ensure European industrial competitiveness and limit the workload on the European Commission, its REACH Committee as well as ECHA and its Committees to what is necessary.

Uses of substances for A&D products without viable alternatives shall be covered by the Essential Use concept by definition! We ask for a recognition that Aerospace (i.e. Aeronautics and Space) just like Defence end products, due to their critical safety and airworthiness requirements and contribution to EU key policies as reflected in specific EU legislation (e.g. Regulation (EU) 2021/696 on the Union Space Programme) are considered as an “essential use” and therefore should benefit from authorisation or sectoral / generic derogation when no suitable alternatives are available. Competent sectoral agencies (EASA, EDA, ESA) shall be consulted to support the decision process on essentiality.

Key messages on the future role of the candidate list

The A&D Industry needs transparency and a clear understanding of which substances are being identified as SVHCs to be able to start detecting any dependency on those as early as possible, including those in our complex and global supply chains.

Additional information requirements for substances in the Candidate List and on further substances (Most Harmful Chemicals, Substances of Concern, etc.), going beyond what is currently available, will impose challenges and a heavy burden for industry.

Sustainable substitution and competitiveness: We are highly concerned about the envisaged broad scope (group-based) restrictions and possible automatisms, which could endanger affordability of the regulatory process to be followed and lead to unintended obsolescence. With an expected significant increase in magnitude of classified and restricted substances (e.g. CEFIC1 estimated that the impact of introducing new hazard classes in CLP and changes in the GRA will be 28% of turnover in the EU chemicals portfolio meaning that up to 12.068 of 25.433 unique (still not comprehensive) registered substances on the market will fall under the Regulation) the sector may simply be overstressed by the required speed of substitutions and investments needed to develop and implement modified or new technologies compatible with our strict airworthiness and safety requirements. The risk of regrettable substitutions (mainly for ingredients in mixtures used in the A&D sector) will significantly increase with the pace of new restrictions and the growing number of regulated substances.

Additional fees are detrimental to incentivise substitution activity in the A&D sector. Furthermore, additional fees on the European industry will lead to competitive disadvantages compared to non-EU industry and will contradict the aim of ensuring a level playing field. Companies could end up paying various millions of euros for a low volume consumption of critical substances with no suitable alternative available.

Key messages on the Generic Risk Management Approach (GRA)

Industrial Uses are out of scope and shall be dealt with under REACH Article 68 (1). This must include any maintenance, repair or overhaul operations carried out on aerospace and defence products outside a factory environment. Infrequent “field repairs” made by trained personnel is very different to other professional actors serving consumers such as hairdressers or heating engineers in domestic homes, thus a differentiation between different types of uses has to be ensured.

Proportionate, manageable, risk-based approach: The regulatory pressure on chemicals which are critical for the safety of our product needs to be proportionate to the expected benefits from a chemical risk perspective. Although some substances may be hazardous, if they are used in a product / article at a low concentration or if there is no exposure under intended use conditions, the product / article could actually be safe in the use / maintenance / EOL phase of the final product (e.g. lead in electronic assemblies). Maintaining the risk-based approach according to REACH Article 68 (1) – supported by a clear and predictable RMOA process underpinned by stakeholder consultations – is considered essential for our sector. In particular, chemical substances used under controlled industrial conditions should not be subject to a purely hazard-based assessment approach; this would also be detrimental to the recycling of key resources (e.g. metals and metal alloys) and could prevent circularity objectives.

Industrial transition pathway including A&D sector

Building an industrial transition pathway in collaboration with key stakeholders (ECHA, EASA, EDA, ESA) & COM, as well as key sectoral company representatives is paramount to facilitate an effective REACH implementation (e.g. Essential Use, sectoral derogations, assessment of suitable alternatives). This is particularly relevant to enable substitution where the development of suitable alternatives can be bolstered though strong partnership and cooperation with solution providers needed to foster technological innovations.

About our sector

Aerospace and Defence Industries Associations of Europe (ASD) is the voice of the European Aeronautics, Space, Defence and Security Industries, representing over 3,000 companies and actively supporting the competitive development of the sector. It has direct members, active in 18 countries, including 20 major European industries and 23 National Associations.

As a producer of very complex systems like launchers, aircrafts, satellites and complex weapon systems, our sector is characterised by stringent design constraints, such as high safety and reliability requirements with rigorous certification and qualification processes. Furthermore, the sector acts in a global and complex supply chain. In many cases, suppliers have to be selected – often without any options - based on their qualified products, their demonstrated heritage or even because suppliers are acting as “single source” for very specific products.

The lifecycle of many A&D products such as aircraft, tanks and defence systems, is measured in decades (e.g. the Panavia Tornado aircraft is now over 45 years old and still in service). Throughout the entire lifetime of those products, our sector has to ensure their reliability and safe use. This includes the need to maintain and repair complex products, sometimes by applying the same processes and materials as initially qualified and being substantially part of type certification decades before.