EU REACH Regulation initiated a worldwide awareness for the regulatory environment and spread the urgency of global harmonization necessary for chemicals in all sectors of industry since 2007. Nobody really knew 12 years ago that it would trigger more and more chemicals regulations to be drafted and implemented in different countries. It should not be underestimated how many regulations came into force after 2007 and how the upcoming chemicals regulations are affected by EU REACH in one way or another.
Turkey is closely following EU Regulations due to the ongoing negotiations with the EU and within the Customs Union framework of harmonization of European Union acquis. All those recent global developments in the chemical regulations have pushed Turkey to accelerate the harmonization process in order to improve the conditions of trade in chemicals especially between the EU and Turkey via implementing EU REACH.
The first Turkish Chemicals Inventory that reflects manufactured and imported substances placed on the market was created in 2011 and updated onwards. That was an outcome of Turkish By-Law on Inventory and Control of Chemicals, mostly known as CICR (KEK in Turkish). Turkish CLP, the By-Law on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Hazardous Substances abbreviated as SEA, was published in 2013 and remains in force since then. Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation (MoEU) is currently at the stage of aligning SEA with the EU CLP Regulation by a recent Draft Amendment. Stakeholders’ are invited to comment on the Draft Amendment and an assessment will be performed by the MoEU. Following SEA, Turkish REACH; KKDIK which repealed and replaced CICR, was published on 23rd of June 2017 and came into force 6 months later on 23rd December 2017. As a result, companies, who notified their substances to MoEU according to the obligations of CICR in the past, must now join pre-SIEFs of their substances to avoid any legal compliance gap if they continue placing substances on the Turkish market. Several companies have already joined the pre-SIEFs of their substances which means initial preparation for compliance and registration has already started.
An outstanding aspect of KKDIK under discussion is the obligation for Chemical Safety Report (CSR) to be prepared by an expert who must go through a tough training course of 64 hours and get certified through an examination. Turkish CSR issue has led to many discussions in the regulatory environment for various reasons. Meanwhile, some consultant companies published posts on social media clearly stating that only Chemical Safety Assessors certified can submit KKDIK registrations and SEA notifications by giving Annex XVIII as reference. That’s a good example of an incorrect statement and a misleading intrepretation of the regulation. KKDIK, Annex XVIII sets out the rules of certification and procedures of becoming a certified body as well as qualifications of the candidates eligible to take the CSR training and enter the exam. It does not determine who can or must submit the registration dossier. Morover, registration dossier submission is made by the legal entity who manufactures or imports the substance to be registered, or the Only Representative (OR) appointed by the manufacturer.
It should not be underestimated that misinterpretation of the regulation and mistakes while determining your company obligations for any regulation, especially complex regulations such as REACH is highly important and can lead to wrong actions taken and money wasted for non-compliance. Misinterpretation of the regulation and distribution of misleading information in social media is a result of inexperienced consultants popping up on the Turkish market and grappling the new business created by KKDIK for cheap marketing purposes. Insufficient understanding of the regulatory language and analytical gaps may be the other reason for such incorrect guidance given by such consultants appearing on the Turkish regulatory market.
Another critical misguidance given to the global chemicals industry is about the certification principle and KKDIK registrations in Turkey. There is a perception created intentionally that the Chemical Safety Assessor training bodies certified by the Ministry in Turkey are the only qualified to register for KKDIK in Turkey. That again contradicts with the fact that manufacturers, importers located in Turkey and local OR appointed by the non-Turkish companies will register the substances using their MoEU Chemicals Registration System (KKS) accounts which are created using legal entity information. It is the company itself that submits the registration to the MoEU, not a certified person.
This should bring to mind that if companies placing chemicals on the Turkish market are planning to work with a local OR to fulfill this tricky piece of compliance work, then the choice has to be made very carefully. The OR role and definition (KKDIK – Article 9) in the regulation is identical with the EU REACH Regulation (Article 8). RGS recommends companies to take a meticulous decision when appointing their OR since there are several newly established local consultancy companies with no EU REACH experince at all, planning to give undervalued and “irresponsible” OR services. The KKDIK obligation resulting with Chemical Safety Reports (CSR) to be prepared and signed by a certified expert triggers the necessity that your local OR must have an experienced and qualified team of experts who can help your company to comply without any hassle.
RGS celebrates 11 years of EU Chemicals Regulatory Compliance servicing with several hundreds of clients all over the world. Do not hesitate to contact RGS, if you need compliance with Turkish Chemicals Laws or more details on our services and the status of your substances.
Dr.Yaprak Yüzak Küçükvar
REACH Global Services Group
Turkey Branch Manager
