The introduction of directly acting chemicals legislation in the EU started in 2007 when the REACH Regulation entered into force, followed by the CLP, Biocidal Products and PIC Regulations. Now, more than 10 years later, all processes under these regulations have been set up and are in full flow, prompting authorities and stakeholders to look more and more towards proper implementation and enforcement of the legislation. On top of this, the Commission’s REACH REFIT evaluation from 2018 puts additional emphasis on enforcement. The Forum and the national enforcement authorities are at the centre of multiple follow-up processes under REACH, CLP, BPR and PIC. At the same time, they are asked by industry to ensure a level playing field across the participating Member States through enforcement. In order to meet these aims, the Forum strives to work towards the harmonisation of enforcement through a number of different activities. It endeavors to create not uniform, but comparable enforcement across all participating Member States. It is the Forum’s aim to harmonise the approach to enforcement, to conduct common enforcement campaigns, to set standards, provide guidance and thus enable enforcers to have a common understanding of enforcement issues. In light of limited resources, both at Forum and national level, the Forum seeks to provide practical assistance to national enforcement authorities, in the form of training, manuals and project preparation, and also through the setting of priorities. This work programme serves to channel the Forum’s – and often subsequently the national enforcement authorities’ – activities and resources in line with ECHA’s Strategic Plan 2019-2023. The most visible outputs of the Forum are the REACH-EN-FORCE (REF) and BPR-EN-FORCE (BEF) projects which, through their uniform set-up and EU-wide participation of almost all Member States, directly provide for a level playing field in a certain area of law. However, as this document demonstrates, other activities are just as important for the harmonisation and improvement of enforcement in the Member States. Over the last few years the tasks of the Forum have grown. It is now responsible not only for the REACH, CLP and PIC Regulations, but also most recently for the Biocidal Products Regulation, for which it created and set up a dedicated subgroup. With the exception of creating the new BPR Subgroup (BPRS), the Forum has managed to handle these tasks with existing resources, building on processes, routines and lessons learnt during more than 10 years of operation. In the next five years, the Forum is prepared to also take on responsibilities under the POP Regulation as a result of the current recast of that regulation. It will continue its work by completing the activities described in this Work Programme. It will thereby promote the safe use of chemicals, address chemicals of concern and answer the call from the legislators, from its institutional partners and stakeholders to further enhance the harmonisation of enforcement.
