The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published its annual report on helpdesk activities. According to the annual report, in 2022, the national helpdesks (NHD) replied to almost 43,000 enquiries, and the ECHA Helpdesk to almost 9,500 questions. The annual report states that responses provided through the survey reflect the activities of the Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR), Classification, Labeling, and Packaging (CLP), and Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Chemicals (REACH) helpdesks across 34 countries. Helpdesks of three candidate and one third country also reported on their 2022 activities.
According to the annual report, the overall trend shows that the number of queries addressed to the NHDs and ECHA decreased after peaking in 2020, returning to pre-pandemic levels. BPR remains the regulation with the highest number of enquiries received by NHDs in the past eight years. The annual report states that the most popular topics were topics that fall within the remit of national authorities, i.e., “National procedures and laws governing the transitional period,” “National fees,” and “National authorisations of biocidal products or families.” For ECHA, REACH continues to be the regulation prompting the highest number of enquiries, in particular in the areas of “Registration” and “Communication along the supply chain.” For all helpdesks, the number of CLP enquiries decreased, although questions related to Annex VIII and poison center notification (PCN) duties “continued to require quite some support.”