Dangerous substances: marketing and use of pentaBDE in polyurethane foam (24th amend. Directive 76/769/EEC)

The European Commission is able to accept one of the eight amendments proposed by the European Parliament. Specifically it relates to the deletion of point 3 in the Annex. Effectively this would mean the deletion of the derogation on pentabromodiphynel ether in concentrations of less than 5% in technical grade octabromodiphenyl ether. In relation to this amendment, the Commission has accepted in principle a new Parliamentary recital that octabromodiphenyl ether may not contain pentabromodiphenyl ether in concentrations higher than 0.1%. Those amendments, which seek to extend the scope of the proposed Directive to include bans on other substances such as octabromidphenyl ether and decabromodiphenyl ether have not been accepted by the Commission. Instead it has decided to wait for the conclusions of a risk assessment report before presenting new proposal on the above mentioned substances.�