It's been whispered in dialogs here that enforcement of RoHS, lead ban
included, has been almost non-existent since the July 1, 2006 doomsday
deadline.  John Burke of <rohsusa.com> has warned that one should not
count on that continuing to be the case.  Most predictions have been
wrong. No-one is blowing the whistle on non-compliant competitors. 
Electronics goods penetration of lead-free solders is over 55%, due to
cell phones, laptops, and games alone. And there is no question that
lead-free penetration is increasing,for now. What are the possibilities
for the future? 

The EU Environmental Commission has indicated, I believe, that enforcement
is a problem.  The customs officials are not equipped to deal with all the
confusing exemptions nor to measure lead content.

It seems also that the EC has heard of the many economic issues attendant
on the drastic process manufacturing change, including the escalation of
tin and silver costs, due to the lead ban. Electronic equipment
reliability impacts have come into question.  Mobile equipment has short
term issues with shock and drop; stationary equipment has long term issues
with tin whisker shorts and Kirkendall Effect opens.  In the meantime tin
and silver mining is robustly increasing at great cost to the environment,
a major unintended consequence of the lead ban.  It does reward the tin
industry lobbying for the lead ban.

Per schedule, the EU has hired the OKO-institute to study these and many
more questions for the 2008 review, so wisely provided for in the original
plan.  The outpouring of objections by hundreds of engineers to the lead
ban has probably influenced the Environmental Commission in this
reappraisal.

John Burke is in touch with Anna Passera of the EC and may have news for
us soon.  I continue to believe in the ultimate reasonableness of people
like Stavros Dimas, the EU Environmental Commissioner.  It's time to put
adversarial poltitics behind us and choose the best ecological solution.
Lead-free solder fails that test.