THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY-BUREAU-OF-REFERENCE IN HARMONIZING COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE COMMISSION-OF-THE-EUROPEAN-COMMUNITIES

While Community Directives provide the legal basis for the harmonizati on of national regulations (e.g. food quality, quality of plastics in contact with foodstuffs, etc.), their implementation sometimes require s measurements and analyses which are beyond the capabilities of many laboratories. The BCR Programme of the Commission of the European Comm unities has undertaken a series of actions in order to help with the i mplementation of Directive 90/128/EEC for plastics materials intended to come into contact with foodstuffs. The certification of the overall migration characteristics of a polyamide material in aqueous food sim ulants by total immersion is well advanced. This material will be avai lable through the BCR Programme in 1993 and will allow the laboratorie s to check their correct application of the normalized method and will provide a basis for laboratory quality assurance. A project is in pro gress for the preparation of a reference material for the measurement of overall migration by total immersion in olive oil. The preparation of a bank of monomers in the positive list of the above Directive and a handbook of physical and spectroscopic data for these monomers has b een supported. Projects are being prepared for supporting the developm ent of methods for the analysis of more than thirty monomers with rest rictions in the positive list of Directive 90/128/EEC.