Ziaja and L'Oreal go to war with Brussels. “We can't keep up with the implementation of changes”

Last week, the heads of 17 cosmetics companies, including the Polish Ziai, appealed to EU lawmakers to simplify the regulations. As the sector warned, without this decision, the industry generating EUR 180 billion in profits per year will lose its competitiveness.

The industry welcomed the European Commission's proposal regarding the so-called chemical omnibus, also known as omnibus VIi.e. simplification of regulations relating to, among others, to the safety of cosmetics. However, company managers admitted that they were anxiously waiting for the decisions of the co-legislators, i.e. the European Parliament and the EU Council, which brings together the member states.

– The EC's proposal is sector-friendly and introduces appropriately long transition periods that will allow us to adapt to the new regulations – admitted Lidia Ziaja in an interview with PAP.

A meeting was held in Brussels last week the Value of Beauty Alliance, bringing together 17 leading concerns from the EU cosmetics industry, including the L'Oreal group and the Polish Ziaja. Company CEOs appealed to the EU simplification of regulations, including the implementation of the chemical omnibusconsidering the EC's proposal as a “pragmatic solution that eliminates legal discrepancies” between the EU Cosmetic Products Regulation (CPR) and the Classification, Labeling and Packaging Regulation (CLP).

As Lidia and Bartosz Ziaja admitted in an interview with PAP, today there are too many regulations affecting the functioning of the cosmetics sector in the EU, while regulations are introduced too often and often overlap or even exclude each other.

– It sometimes happens that regulation becomes regulation. We can't keep up with the implementation of the product when it turns out that a new regulation has suddenly come into force and we have to comply with subsequent changes, because the composition of the cosmetic has to be changed, because an ingredient has been withdrawn, or the packaging has to be changed. All this means that we have to constantly work on reformulations and constantly update the descriptions on our packaging – said the heads of the Ziaja concern.

They added that in accordance with current regulations, the company must change 90 percent. your assortment. – We have 1,200 products. We need to reformulate or repackage 1,080 of them, admitted Lidia Ziaja.

The head of the L'Oreal group, Nicolas Hieronimus, said in Brussels that today 70 percent companies' research and development budget is spent on reformulating cosmetics or repackaging them to adapt them to current EU regulations. This hampers the innovation and competitiveness of a sector that is lagging behind in the global race.

– Chinese companies can use all ingredients and have no restrictions on packaging, so 100 percent their budget goes to development – compared the head of L'Oreal Group.

Although the industry welcomed the EC's proposal to simplify “chemical regulations”, it also appealed to the Commission to amend the wastewater directive, arguing that it unfairly burdens the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries with the costs of wastewater treatment, while ignoring other industrial sectors, e.g. textiles and chemicals. And this discourages these industries from modernizing their sewage infrastructure.

The sector also expressed disappointment that the simplification of regulations did not cover the EU regulation on packaging and packaging waste, which was not included in the provisions of the so-called environmental omnibus.

“While we fully support the use of greener packaging, a more pragmatic and technologically modern framework is needed so that companies can focus their resources on achieving sustainable development goals, rather than being hampered by overly complex and impossible to meet compliance requirements in practice,” the group's executives said in Brussels.

Data from the Value of Beauty Alliance show that the cosmetics industry brings the EU EUR 180 billion annually, the value of EU cosmetics exports is estimated at EUR 29.4 billion, and the sector employs 3.5 million workers throughout the Community.

Negotiations are currently underway in the EU to simplify cosmetics safety regulations.

From Brussels Jowita Kiwnik Pargana (PAP)

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