Consumers are exposed to chemicals present in cosmetics. Any cosmetic product sold on the EU market must comply with the rules set up by Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products (the Cosmetic Products Regulation (CPR)). The CPR aims to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the good functioning of the internal market.

As outlined in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, the EU's chemicals legislation - including the CPR - has to evolve in order to better protect the environment and human health. To this aim, the strategy includes a commitment of the Commission to present in 2022 a new legislative proposal to amend the CPR. 

According to the inception impact assessment, the revision may address the following issues: extend the generic approach to risk management to ensure that cosmetics do not contain hazardous chemicals, and, in particular, take into account combination effects (i.e. interactions between different chemicals present in cosmetics); improve safety assessments; review the definition of nanomaterials used in the CPR to ensure coherent terminology across chemicals legislation and improve the labelling of cosmetic products.

A public consultation on the inception impact assessment took place between October and November 2021. On 28 March 2022, the Commission launched a public consultation on the upcoming revision of the CPR, which was open until 21 June 2022. The Commission particularly recalled that the objective of the revision was to ensure that the CPR promotes innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals as well as a high level of protection of health and the environment, while preserving the internal market. The Commission received 332 contributions from stakeholders.

References:

• European Commission, Have your say - CPR revision.
• European Commission, Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. Towards a Toxic-Free Environment, COM(2020) 667, 14 October 2020.
• European Commission, Commission work programme 2021. A Union of vitality in a world of fragility, COM(2020) 690, and Annex, 19 October 2020.
• European Commission, The European Green Deal, COM(2019)640, 11 December 2019.
• Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products (consolidated text)

Author: Camille Siefridt, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu