(1)

Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) sets out certain requirements as regards the classification, labelling, and packaging of substances and mixtures. That Regulation was amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4), which, inter alia, introduced specific rules on the formatting of labels, deadlines for relabelling in case of changes in classification, information requirements for advertisements and distance sales offers and labelling requirements for filling stations. Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 also deferred the date of application of those rules.

(2)

The 2024 report entitled ‘The future of European competitiveness’ (the Draghi report) highlighted that the number and the complexity of rules risk limiting the room for manoeuvre for Union undertakings and preventing them from remaining competitive. A detailed analysis of Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 also pointed to excessive administrative burden and costs associated with requirements introduced by Regulation (EU) 2024/2865. Based on those findings, the Commission has proposed to simplify certain requirements and procedures for chemical products (5). That proposal is intended, inter alia, to balance better, on the one hand, the need for labelling information to be clearly understood by consumers and, on the other hand, the need to reduce market barriers and administrative burden for industry, as expressed in the Commission Communication entitled ‘The Single Market: our European home market in an uncertain world, a strategy for making the Single Market simple, seamless and strong’. In light of that proposal, it is necessary to further defer the obligations introduced by Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 on formatting of labels, advertisements, distance sales offers and relabelling. Such further deferral would enable economic operators to prepare for changes to the formatting and labelling requirements, as well as new information requirements for advertisements and distance sales offers envisaged in the Commission’s proposal.

(3)

Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 introduced specific provisions for the labelling of fuels supplied at filling stations. However, certain requirements, including the requirement to indicate the supplier, the nominal quantity, and the unique formula identifier, appeared to be impractical and costly for undertakings, without bringing any benefit to the protection of human health and the environment. Therefore, the Commission intends to modify those requirements to make them more apt by removing unnecessary and burdensome labelling requirements. In light of those anticipated modifications, it is appropriate to further defer the date of application of those requirements.

(4)

Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 contains transitional provisions that enable undertakings to apply, on a voluntary basis, the new rules introduced by that Regulation before the dates of their application. To ensure consistency with the longer deferral and to provide legal clarity for economic operators, it is necessary to amend the dates of application of those transitional provisions on mandatory formatting requirements, relabelling, advertisements, distance sales offers and labelling of filling stations and align them with the extended deferred applicability dates.

(5)

To ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment, the application dates of other provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 should remain unchanged.

(6)

Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 should therefore be amended accordingly,

(a)

paragraph 2 is replaced by the following:

(b)

paragraph 3 is replaced by the following:

(c)

the following paragraph is inserted:

(d)

paragraph 4 is replaced by the following:

(e)

paragraph 5 is replaced by the following:

(f)

the following paragraph is added: