Correspondence on OELs for formaldehyde
Dear European Chemicals Agency,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in regulation 1049/2001, I would like to request access, on the topic of occupational exposure limits for formaldehyde, to all correspondence (including, but not limited to, emails, letters, and/or telephone call notes) including attachments, the list of meetings with detailed minutes and any other reports of such meetings, all documents prepared for the purpose of these meetings and issued after these meetings, and documents exchanged during the course of these meetings
1. Between EU officials and industry, trade associations, or think tanks and
2. Between different services within the European Commission.
during the period 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2016.
Do not hesitate to get back to me should you need any further information which could facilitate your research.
Thank you for your assistance.
Yours faithfully,
Frederik Hugo Ledegaard Thim
Dear Mr. Hugo Ledegaard Thim,
Thank you for your below message dated 7 March 2025.
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your application for access to documents
under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, which has been registered on 10 March
2025 under reference ATD/034/2025.
Best regards,
ECHA Access to documents team [2]A blue and black logo
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Dear Mr Ledegaard Thim,
With reference to your request for access to document dated 7 March 2025
(reference number ATD-034-2024), please find attached a reply from ECHA.
Kind regards,
Dossier Evaluation
[1][email address]
echa.europa.eu
P.O. Box 400, FI-00121 Helsinki,
Finland
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2. https://twitter.com/EU_ECHA
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Dear ECHA Evaluation_Feedback,
Thanks for getting back. There must have been some activity relating to the SCOEL report in 2016. I can imagine you made a public request for information from the scientific community and industry? Or maybe the industry contacted SCOEL og ECHA regarding the newest science or reports on formaldehyde. It seems highly unlikely that there were no correspondance. Are you sure?
Yours sincerely,
Frederik Hugo Ledegaard Thim
Dear Mr Ledegaard Thim,
We confirm that, unfortunately, we do not have any correspondence on occupational exposure limits (OELs) for formaldehyde. As stated in our reply letter from 13 March, ECHA has not been involved in the derivation of an OEL for formaldehyde for the period 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2016 therefore, we don't hold the requested documents. As indicated in our letter, the last recommendation was made in 2016 by the Scientific Committee of Occupation Exposure Limit (SCOEL). For more information, we recommend that you directly contact the services of DG EMPL.
Kind regards,
Dossier Evaluation team
Dear ECHA Evaluation_Feedback,
I will therefore broaden the period of my request to go back to 1. January 2006.
Yours sincerely,
Frederik Hugo Ledegaard Thim
Dear Mr. Ledegaard Thim,
Thank you for your below message dated 7 April 2025. ECHA Evaluation team
has forwarded your enquiry to our service to be handled as an access to
documents request under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your application for access to documents
under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, which has been registered on 8 April
2025 under reference ATD/041/2025.
Best regards,
ECHA Access to documents team [2]A blue and black logo
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European Chemicals Agency generated
echa.europa.eu
[1]A black background with a black square
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medium confidenceP.O. Box 400, FI-00121
Helsinki, Finland
EMAS Registered
[3]A black background with a black square
Description automatically generated with
ISO 9001:2015 medium confidence[4][IMG][5][IMG][6][IMG]
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ISO 14001:2015
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This e-mail, including any files, is intended for the use of the
individual to whom it is addressed. If you have received this
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Dear Mr. Frederik Hugo Ledegaard Thim,
We refer to your request for access to documents under Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 (the ATD Regulation) registered on 7 April 2025 under the
above-mentioned reference number.
In your request, you seek access to “any correspondence on occupational
exposure limits (OELs) for formaldehyde” since 1 January 2006.
As indicated on our [1]website, ECHA and its Committee for Risk Assessment
(RAC) have been supporting the European Commission’s Directorate-General
for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) by providing
scientific opinions on OELs since 2019. The first OEL pilot projects ECHA
was involved were from 2017.
The recommendation on occupational exposure limits for formaldehyde was
published in 2016. ECHA was not involved in the preparation of this
document. Therefore, as indicated in our previous communications dated on
18 March 2025 and 24 March 2025, ECHA does not hold any document on the
preparation of this recommendation.
As visible from the [2]document, it was drafted by DG EMPL’s Scientific
Committee on Occupational Exposure Limits (SCOEL). Therefore, as indicated
in our previous communications, we recommend you to directly contact the
services of DG EMPL to seek to receive documents on this matter. Their
contact details are available here: [3]Employment, Social Affairs and
Inclusion - European Commission.
Therefore, since ECHA was not involved in the preparation of the
occupational exposure limits (OELs) for formaldehyde, at any time, between
its creation in 2008 and today, in accordance with Article 6(2) of
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, we kindly ask you to clarify what documents
you seek to obtain from ECHA on this topic.
To facilitate further discussion, we are available to have a
teleconference to clarify your request. Please provide us your personal
email address and phone number to facilitate the arrangement of this call.
Please note that, as set out in the Management Board decision on the
implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 in ECHA ([4]MB/12/2008
final), the deadline for replying to your request will run only from the
time we have received your clarification.
We would appreciate receiving the clarification of your application by 22
April 2025.
If we do not hear from you within the above timeframe, your request will
be closed, and it will not be further processed.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Best regards,
Access to documents team
European Chemicals Agency
This e-mail, including any files, is intended for the use of the
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References
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1. https://echa.europa.eu/oel
2. https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/3...
3. https://commission.europa.eu/about/depar...
4. https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/1...