Assessment and verification: The applicant shall provide a declaration that additive flame retardants have not been used and indicate which reactive flame retardants, if any, have been used and provide documentation (such as safety data sheets) and/or declarations indicating that those flame retardants comply with this criterion.

37. Recognises the threat to ecosystems from certain pesticides, flame retardants and other persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic chemicals; stresses the importance in this regard of effective implementation of REACH; stresses the need to monitor bio-accumulation of such pollutants through the use of top predators in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments; considers furthermore that special attention should be given to the hazards of pesticide use as they are designed to be toxic and are used in the environment; points out that European pesticide legislation - proposal for a regulation on the placing of plant p ...[+++]rotection products on the market (COM(2006)0388); proposal for a framework directive on the sustainable use of pesticides (COM(2006)0372 ); Thematic strategy on the sustainable use of pesticides (COM(2006)0373) - should ensure that the European biodiversity loss does not grow due to pesticide use;

36. Recognises the threat to ecosystems from certain pesticides, flame retardants and other persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic chemicals; stresses the importance in this regard of effective implementation of REACH; stresses the need to monitor bio-accumulation of such pollutants through the use of top predators in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments; considers furthermore that special attention should be given to the hazards of pesticide use as they are designed to be toxic and are used in the environment; points out that the new European pesticide legislation - proposal for a regulation on the placing of plant p ...[+++]rotection products on the market (COM(2006)0388 - 2006/0136(COD)); proposal for a framework directive on the sustainable use of pesticides (COM(2006)0372 - 2006/0132(COD)); Thematic strategy on the sustainable use of pesticides (COM(2006)0373 - 2007/2006(INI)) - should ensure that the European biodiversity loss does not grow due to pesticide use;

This requirement does not apply to flame retardants that on application change their chemical nature to no longer warrant classification under any of the R-phrases listed above, and where less than 0.1 % of the flame retardant in the treated part remains in the form as before application.

They are designed for applications requiring a special performance, such as primer and top coats for plastics, primer coat for ferrous substrates, primer coat for reactive metals such as zinc and aluminium, anticorrosion finishes, floor coatings, including for wood and cement floors, graffiti resistance, flame retardant, and hygiene standards in the food or drink industry or health services.

The Commission only proposed a ban on the marketing and use of one of the dangerous flame retardants, pentaBDE, and, following demands by Parliament, the directive was successfully extended so that the final result arrived at by the conciliation committee also includes two further flame retardants.