EEB calls for a robust revised EU Mercury Regulation ENVI Committee – 1Reading Vote – 11 January 2024, Brussels - Brussels, 9 January 2024

We welcome the work of the ENVI Committee to make progress on this file, and we would like to urge it to take account of the following issues1 and our voting recommendation as below: 1. [...] The manufacture and export of mercury-added products not allowed in the EU should be prohibited. [...] The very few remaining EU companies have already shifted their production lines to LEDs and more jobs are expected to be created with local assembly of LEDs products; • Re-location of EU businesses is unlikely; mercury use is decreasing and equivalent measures in other countries are being developed and implemented. [...] Further (re)assess remaining uses of mercury, including in lighthouses and porosimetry • The 2008 COWI/Concorde report concluded that it would be consistent with the EU objectives to regulate mercury that is no longer used in light houses, and send it directly for safe disposal if no longer needed. [...] • In the same report, mercury consumption for porosimetry was assessed to be substantially larger than previously expected and potentially among the largest remaining uses in the EU.