Introductory text

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive 1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC,^f1 and in particular Article 74(1) thereof,

Whereas:

Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, the structure and amount of the fees provided for in that Regulation shall take account of the work required to be carried out by the European Chemicals Agency (‘the Agency’) and the competent authorities and shall be fixed at such a level as to ensure that the revenue derived from them when combined with other sources of the Agency's revenue is sufficient to cover the cost of the services delivered.

The experience gained so far by the Agency and its Committees for Risk Assessment and for Socioeconomic Analysis in assessing applications for authorisation has shown that the amount of work involved in such assessment is driven by the number of uses applied for in one application, rather than the number of applicants having jointly submitted the application. Consequently, the fee applicable to a given application should be the same, regardless of the number of applicants; no additional fee should be levied for each additional applicant. The same reasoning applies also to the charges for submission of any review report. Modifying the fees and charges accordingly could allow easing the financial burden for smaller operators, such as small and medium-sized enterprises.

Where a joint application for authorisation is submitted, the fees and charges should be shared among the applicants in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner, in particular with regard to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The existing SME reductions for the fees and charges should be taken into account for sharing the total applicable fees and charges.

Where enterprises having submitted a joint application for authorisation belong to different size categories for which different base fees would apply, the highest fee should be levied.

Furthermore, following the review of Commission Regulation (EC) No 340/2008^f2, conducted in 2015, and in the light of the experience gained in treating authorisation applications, it is appropriate that the authorisation fees and charges be adjusted to reflect the workload of the Agency. To that end, the additional fees and charges applicable per additional use should be only slightly lower than the amount of the basic fee or charge. Those additional fees or charges per additional use should therefore be increased.

Regulation (EC) No 340/2008 should therefore be amended accordingly.

For reasons of legal certainty, this Regulation should not apply to applications submitted before the day of entry into force of this Regulation.

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee established under Article 133 of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: