Council of the EU accepts Bulgaria's position in defence of essential oil producers

On the last day of the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU, member states, at the level of the Committee of Permanent Representatives - COREPER 1, approved a legislative proposal that maintains the current approach to classifying essential oils, Ministry of Agriculture said on July 2.

This means that for now, there is no option for rose oil to be declared toxic. There were such fears because of the European Commission's proposal to amend the Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures.

The EU Council has accepted the arguments of Bulgaria and seven other member states about the difficulties in adopting the proposed approach, and included a review clause asking the Commission to make further analysis and present it in four years.

The Bulgarian position in favour of essential oil producers was presented by Agriculture and Food Minister Kiril Vatev at a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on June 26-27. Vatev said Bulgaria insisted on keeping the current approach to the classification of essential oils in order to preserve the traditional methods of growing essential oil crops in the EU and let farmers and seasonal workers in the sector retain their livelihood. He called for essential oils to be excluded from the concept of complex substances so that they continue to be classified under the current rules as substances and not as mixtures.

The EU Council's decision is a positive development for manufacturers of natural ingredients for perfumery and cosmetics. Negotiations with the European Parliament to agree on the final text of the regulation are yet to be held.

Minister Vatev commented that the decision is an achievement of the whole government and personally of the Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov. The Prime Minister strongly defended Bulgarian rose oil and other natural essential oils at the European Council meeting. During the debate on "Economy", he pointed to a significant flaw in the draft Regulation on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Chemicals (CLP), which places essential oils in the category of hazardous chemical mixtures.

"When discussing whether something is harmful, we need to look not only at what the substance is, but also what its concentration is. That is what determines whether the substance is dangerous or not. The word 'concentration' is missing in the text of the regulation being presented," Nikolai Denkov, a world-renowned scientist in the field of chemistry and physic chemistry, explained to journalists in Brussels.

Speaking to other leaders, the Bulgarian Prime Minister described the forthcoming European regulation as an abuse of science. He has explicitly asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to refine the text because "it is not scientific as it should be" and has received her understanding.