A Competent Authorities for REACH and CLP (CARACAL) technical meeting to discuss Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) took place on the 23 April in Brussels. This meeting was a result of the general CARACAL meeting held 8 March, from which there was no agreement amongst the Member States.

On the agenda of 23 April the meeting were discussion on:

• 'Intrinsic' hazardous property of a substance

• Translation of TiO2 classification into Annex VI entry

• How to address hazards of poorly soluble low toxicity particles (PSLTs) under Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP)?

The participants at the meeting included the European Commission (DG ENVI, DG GROW, and DG EMPL), the European Chemicals Agency, 17 Member States and a number of other stakeholders, including the Titanium Dioxide Manufacturers Association (TDMA), European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists' Colours Industry (CEPE), the European Federation representing the European waste management industry (FEAD), and the European Plastics Converters (EUPC). There remains no agreement between authorities and Member States. Conclusions on the matter are expected at the Caracal meeting on 12 June 2018.

Cerame-Unie is drafting a position on the regulatory developments surrounding TiO2 and is working with TDMA. TDMA and Cerame-Unie strongly believe that TiO2 should not be considered for the Adaptation to Technical Progress (ATP) in 2018 and that the Commission should wait until further information is available and until key issues are satisfactorily addressed.