European Commission Launches Webpage on the Evaluation of FCMs

The European Commission (EC) has launched a webpage on the evaluation of food contact materials (FCMs). By way of background, in November 2017, the EC published a roadmap to assess the EU’s approach to regulating food-contact materials. (See the PackagingLaw.com article, EC Publishes Roadmap to Evaluate Regulation of FCMs, for more information on the roadmap.)

All information related to the evaluate of the current European Union (EU) legislative framework for FCMs will be posted on the new FCMs evaluation webpage.

The evaluation process will comprise five main criteria, namely:

• Effectiveness of the approaches, processes and tools set up by the FCM Regulation and its associated and implementing measures in relation to the original objectives of the Regulation;
• Efficiency of the approaches, processes and tools set up by the FCM Regulation and its associated and implementing measures in relation to the resources used;
• Relevance of the Regulation in relation to current scientific and technological developments in the field of FCMs, and stakeholders' needs and expectations;
• Coherence internally and with other related interventions at National, European and International level; and
• EU added value compared to what could have been achieved by Member States or otherwise without regulating FCMs at EU level.

The evaluation is expected to be completed in 2020.

The timeline for the evaluation is as follows:

• September 2018: Workshop to inform the inception phase of the evaluation;
• September 2018 – April 2019:
  • Targeted interviews to investigate, clarify, substantiate and analyze the evidence provided by key stakeholders in the practical implementation of the FCM legislation;
  • Focus Group meetings to integrate stakeholders' knowledge on application of the FCM Regulation
• Late 2018/ early 2019: A 12-week open public consultation that will be launched on the EC's Have Your Say Portal, and
• June 2019: Workshop to present and reflect on draft findings of the evaluation.

Interested stakeholders may register their interest in contributing to the evaluation by email to the following address: SANTE-FCM-EVALUATION@ec.europa.eu