European Commission proposes amending RoHS to re-attribute scientific and technical tasks to ECHA ("one substance, one assessment")

The European Commission published a legislative proposal (COM(2023) 781) to amend Directive 2011/65/EU (RoHS) to re-attribute scientific and technical tasks (notably supporting processes under Article 5 exemptions and Article 6 review/amendment of restricted substances) to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). If adopted, this would change how RoHS exemptions and potential restriction updates are scientifically assessed and managed, with implications for exemption application strategy, evidence requirements, and monitoring of RoHS restriction/exemption decision-making workflows.