The likelihood is that, when the UK leaves the EU, the body of EU law that we’ve been following since January 1st 1973 when we joined the European Economic Community will be translated into UK law. Theresa May has said as much.
However, the government has also said that much of EU environmental law (up to a third, in fact), cannot be copied and pasted into UK law, and will require extra work to make sure that the country continues its current standards of environmental protection, Chemical Watch reports.
The Environmental Audit Committee has now held a second inquiry into the future of law and policy where the environment is concerned, inviting responses on questions such as what scope is there for the UK to come up with a different approach to the regulation of chemicals from the EU once Brexit has happened?
Partner at law firm Keller and Heckman Marcus Navin-Jones recently stated his belief that it’s unlikely legislation will change, at least in the short term. “There will not be a very significant amount of chemical legislation repealed. Having said that I do think, particularly in the UK, there may be an increasing divergence between, on the one hand how the UK – and on the other hand how the [European] Commission or [the European Chemicals Agency] – interpret and apply EU law,” he said.
This comes as Steve Elliott, the chief executive of the Chemical Industry Association, said that officials in the UK are not contributing much to EU chemical policy discussions because they’re concentrating more on how Brexit can be achieved. What’s more, other member states are not as inclined to listen to them now that the UK has voted to leave the EU.
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