site.btaEuropean Federation of Essential Oils VP: Excessive Regulations Not Particularly Wanted by Industry

A second national meeting of distillers of oil-bearing crops in Bulgaria took place at Sofia’s Inter Expo Centre on Tuesday. The meeting is organized by the Essential Oil Producers Association Distilled in Bulgaria.

Among the main regulations which took effect and impact the industry are CLP (Classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals) and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). They took companies many years, resources and efforts to adapt. Excessive regulations are not particularly wanted by the industry which consists of a large number of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, said Andrey Mitov, Vice President of the European Federation of Essential Oils EFEI during the meeting. 

According to him, limiting the use of their products in a purely administrative way in addition to the complex market is a problem, which threatens the existence of a large part of producers and traders. This motivates international organizations to be active and participate in the drafting of the documents and seek the action cooperation of local experts ad politicians in order to protect the interests of the industry. 

After the CLP and REACH regulations took effect, for three years changes to them in connection with the Green Deal and the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability have been on the agenda. "The changes are not targeted entirely at essential oils but would have considerable and unforeseen damages on our activity,” said Mitov. 

"I hope with regards to the support that we have rallied and the positive result of votes in the European Parliament to have the desired result. Currently the plans are to exclude essential oils from the scope of proposed amendments. Next year we’ll move on to the next stage with renewed efforts, to the revisions of the REACH regulation", said Mitov. 
 
Margarita Alexandrova of the Economy Ministry said that the sector contributes to employment not only in agriculture and the processing industry but to tourism as well. There are 3,000 rose growers, and during rose picking a total of 40,000 people are employed seasonally.