An informal working group consisting of the six REACH competent authorities representing Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have been working on a prioritisation scheme for classified substances in the EU. The aim of the group is to present a shortlist of high concern chemicals for inclusion in the official REACH Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern.

The considerations made by the working group are very similar to the ones used in the SIN List methodology. For instance substances in hydrocarbon streams were emoved. However the working group have chosen to include pesticides and POPs since such substances cannot be completely excluded from all other possible applications. As a consequence, the SIN List is by comparison more conservative in its assessment of SVHCs.

From the established shortlist, the working group has applied different prioritisation criteria. The different criteria taken into account in the ranking are: Hazard classification, Production volume, Exposure, and Wide dispersive uses. More than 100 substances have received a high ranking in this internal prioritisation effort.

All EU Member States are recommended by the group to take individual action over the coming two years on the selected substances and to share the workload among Member States by start preparing Annex XV dossiers for the candidate list. When doing so they are also encouraged to search for more information confirming the information assessed.