THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS - IFEAT

So the Commission is now faced with an issue. We have pointed out to the Commission that if theyare faced with an issue, we are also faced with a very big issue, which is that these ingredients are ofkey importance to our industry. These ingredients are in excess of 90 per cent of all fine fragrances.They are overriding, and the palette of the perfumers cannot do without them. We have presented thisto the Commission, which understands from a creative viewpoint. We have taken members of theCommission to fragrance houses to talk to perfumers and they understand the issue.EU Commission PerceptionNaturalsFragrance IndustryManufacturersRetailersConsumersAlso we have made a separate valuation of the business impact for the fragrance houses in terms ofreformulation. Just to give you an idea, to reformulate these 35,000 formulas would take the fragrancehouses in Europe four years. They would be unable to take any new briefs and this would be there 4years, 24/7 of reformulating. The Commission understands that Europe would lose competitivenessand would lose innovation. The cost involved would be out of all proportion; I won’t say it here,because it is just mindboggling, but its very expensive to reformulate all of these formulas.So if we just pause for a second, where is the Commission today on the SCCS’s Opinion? Theyunderstand the issue for the fragrance industry; the manufacturers have been very vocal and theposition from the manufacturers viewpoint is understood. The retailers are not very vocal but theyhave other ways to become vocal if they want to. The retailers are very well known in Europe for otherreasons, especially in the selective distribution and have been very good at defending their model inEurope. So retailers are very well known to the Commission. As for the consumer, so far the consumerhas not really expressed any interest in the issue; but they still want to buy their products - so that’sOK.NATURALS VULNERABILITY AND THEIR PROTECTIONWhen it comes to the naturals, the Commission is a bit lost. They do not really see how essential oilsin general fit into this value chain. So we have tried to explain this to them, and our explanation waspretty convincing when it comes to explaining how a perfumer creates, and also on how we use theingredients from an industrial point of view in the fragrance houses, but what they do not know iswhat naturals represent in the world. They do not have this feeling as much because of what we havedone on the other side of the industry with the socio-economic analysis.Here again, what could the SCCS Opinion trigger with DG Sanco? If you go back to a few examples,such as the Cosmetics Directive, which became the Cosmetics Regulation; REACH, which Hans vanBergen, will talk about next; the ban on animal testing, then you know the industry has always cried228