Thumm adds that the member chairmen and CEOs of both Südwesttextil and VTB have repeatedly warned against the side-effects of the new EU chemicals legislation, which he says will mainly impact the downstream industries that use these substances and raw materials. “Textile manufacturers have already informed the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) of this development, given that one car alone contains an average 23 kilograms of textiles – many of which are colored by ultra-lightfast anthraquinoid dyes and pigments. It is among these special substances that the shortfall is often greatest, for the raw material anthraquinone is in very short supply. Should this development continue, it will therefore be our primary goal to avoid production stoppages in the automotive industry. This sector is just one example of the many textile sectors and associated value chains that are dependent on hundreds of different special dyes,” he noted.
Arved Westerkamp, CEO of Südwesttextil member company Rösch/Rökona of Tübingen, recently gave a presentation which outlined the concern of the sector at the REACH REFIT review in Brussels on 11 June. The presentation was based on the analysis of the contents of hundreds of REFIT background documents, which it’s said, “largely contradict the European Commission’s official account of the status of REACH.”
“Like many other textile finishers in the EU, this textile-processing SME (Rösch ) experiences every day how the abstract decisions made by bureaucrats in Brussels and the Chemicals Agency in Helsinki take practical effect on a highly complex, global supply chain,” said Thumm.
Using the dye and pigment industry as an example in his Brussels presentation, Westerkamp, forecasted key impacts of REACH which he says will now occur. The core messages were that REACH has created an imbalance; after 10 years of REACH, there is no sign that it has achieved its objectives; REACH has brought about more disadvantages than advantages; more and more monopolies are being created; the manufacture of textile dyes has been relocated entirely to the Far East because of REACH, leaving Europe dependent on East Asia; the EU is importing more (not less) products that have been manufactured in other countries using unclean processes; bureaucracy is getting out of hand; jobs are being lost; innovation is not happening; and monopolies are being created.
