Amusing side-note:
The E.U.'s own motivation for this is in part to do with accumulated dross in the regulatory system: multiple overlapping and old classifications.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022PC0748
So sticking with the copied old E.U. system from 2008 (which the H.M.G. responses say would be the result of a #StormontBrake) would be to leave N.I. law as being more complex and expensive "red tape" for businesses to cope with than current E.U. law is.
#Brexit, eh!
The effect on actual N.I. to G.B. trade is minimal; with no indication that conforming N.I. chemical suppliers/distributors will violate any U.K. regulations.
Not conforming will, however, impact them far more greatly than any re-training and label adjustments costs will. It will collapse their off-island market drastically.
It does seem that the DUP is a cut-their-noses-off-despite-their-own-faces party oftentimes.
#chemistry #NIPolitics #UKPolitics #StormontBrake #DemocraticUnionists
The impact on #NorthernIreland businesses is basically the same as on all E.U. chemical industry businesses: re-train to learn about the new categories, adjust product and container labels (if applicable), and make sure the fonts and WWW sites are compliant. It's an entirely level playing field in that respect; and as is pointed out, businesses have to spend on maintaining and updating labels *anyway*.
The politicians, journalists, and thus #PhilMoorhouse have described this as "changes to font sizes and rules around spacing".
If that were true, this would be an entirely artificial political row.
In reality, the changes deal in (amongst other things) what counts as selling chemicals to the general public, and six new (as yet) E.U.-only categories of hazardous chemical (although those categories not coming into full effect until 2026).
The 2024 response from the LCP government can be paraphrased as "Not a huge problem. NI businesses can follow the new rules & still trade with GB. Since the new rules won't make a tangible difference until 2026, this just folds into continuing training & updates that happen anyway.".
Nothing changed E.U.-side to warrant this change in the H.M.G. position. It's a genuine ideological difference between the CUP and the LCP.
Which leads to:
The 2023 CUP government response to the #NorthernIreland Assembly can be paraphrased as "Och nae! It's going to be a significant divergence, but we'll fix it with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.".
For reference: The N.I. Protocol Bill was the one where we were just going to ignore our international obligations and break treaties. It really wouldn't have fixed this, because the E.U.'s import restrictions would be out of the U.K.'s hands.
There were two H.M. Government responses to the #NorthernIreland Assembly committee, a 2023 one from the CUP government and a 2024 one from the LCP government. They are as different as chalk and cheese.
The EU rules are in areas that are devolved to the #NorthernIreland Assembly, and there are hints in some of the H.M. Government responses that the Assembly actually has the power to do something about all this, itself. Although it appears that doing nothing and just letting the EU change automatically take effect is the simplest choice.
Talking of the H.M. Government responses:
The rule change is for the labelling of hazardous chemicals by the chemical industry. There is a UN Global Harmonized System for this (vide https://unece.org/about-ghs).
The E.U.'s approach to the rules is proactive. It changed its rules to expand them, & is proposing its changes to the UNECE.
The U.K.'s approach is, or at least was in 2023, reactive. It waits for changes to happen at UNECE level before implementing them in U.K. law.
However:
If you heard about the #StormontBrake threat from #PhilMoorhouse then you have been seriously misinformed. Unfortunately, from past evidence, M. Moorhouse does research via Twitter & Twitter-facing-journalist, rather than directly.
BBC News points to the NI Assembly report on the EU law change:
If M. Moorhouse had only *read that* xe would know a whole lot of things that xe says xe couldn't find out about from any source.
Such as:
JdeBP