What is Defence Exemption?
Article 2.3 of REACH Regulation provides a possible appeal for exemption when it is in the interest of Defence.
In France, the creation, submission and instruction of exemption applications are regulated by the French decree of 22nd March 2011 defining the conditions of an exemption to the REACH Regulation.
Applying for a defence exemption includes an administrative and a technical file with the following contents:
Apart from operational emergency cases, the principle set by the decree is that the request be « addressed to the Minister of Defence and to the Minister of Environment ».
However, specific terms are applicable to the different parts of the dossier, in particular:
- The administrative dossier has to be sent in duplicate respectively to the Minister of Defence and to the Minister of Environment.
- The technical file is divided into 2 parts that are subject to the following rules:
- The subfolder entitled « interest of defence » has to be sent in duplicate to the Minister of Defence solely
- The subfolder entitled “risk management” has to be addressed respectively to the Minister of Defence and to the Minister of Environment
All of the documents must be submitted in electronic form. In every subfolder, the classified documents and the top-secret documents must be gathered aside in an annex that shall be sent to the Minister of Defence solely.
As for a submission of the « latest application date » for the REACH Authorisation procedure, no transition period is scheduled. It is then up to the applicants to take into account the duration of the file examination by the authorities (approximately 6 months) for the date of submission of the file.
