Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20050906.6.2-012"2
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"Creating a legal environment that ensures the
protection of the health and safety of European employees has been an unequivocal obligation of the European legislative process for decades. This obligation is set out
in Article 137 of the Treaty of Rome. A ‘framework directive’ of the European Economic Community, adopted in 1989, constitutes the basis of the legal environment. The provisions of this directive stipulate that, in order to ensure workers’ health and safety, employers have a general obligation to evaluate all possible risks that could have an adverse effect on workers’ health while carrying out their occupational activities. The framework directive, then, sets out this general obligation to ensure that workers can be protected from all adverse effects. Specific types of risks are not listed in this prescriptive text, because the range of risks constantly changes and expands depending on changes in the occupational environment. The employer, however, must be attentive to all risks, regardless of this.
As far back as 1989, the legislators already intended drafting appropriate legal provisions, tailor-made to fit the different risks, and this was the reason why a specific piece of legislation was drawn up concerning physical risks. Following its first reading in 1992, Parliament decided to divide it into four parts, thus giving rise to the different risk-related directives on noise, vibrations and electromagnetic fields. The last component, on optical radiation, is now on the agenda for its second reading. On issues relating to radiation from artificial sources, a fairly broad consensus was achieved in the course of Parliament’s work and the conciliation process that took place with representatives of the Commission and the Council. On the other hand, the question of solar radiation, in other words radiation from natural sources, proved controversial, so I would like to say a few words about it.
It is a fundamental principle that the employer is responsible for any harm arising to an employee from occupational activities. This is incontrovertible, and the earlier legislative provisions still in force today clearly stipulate this. Obviously, a distinction must be drawn between different countries, different circumstances and even in terms of radiation, and therefore a great deal of detailed and complicated consultation was necessary before we were able to arrive at a compromise with the majority of our fellow Members. The essence of this compromise is that, on account of the extremely varied circumstances prevailing in relation to solar radiation, it would make sense for detailed provisions and specific measures to be elaborated at the level of the Member States. In the spirit of subsidiarity, this compromise proposes that, in the case of radiation from natural sources, the task of setting out appropriate provisions should be the competence of the individual countries. It is obvious that the situation is very different in Sweden and in Greece, in Spain and in Germany. The traditions are different; the culture is different. It therefore makes sense to give individual countries the opportunity to define the obligations that employers will be expected to meet. At the same time, however, I also consider it an important achievement that broad agreement was reached on numerous issues relating to the report; for example, the Council indicated that it was willing to accept the proposal supported by all political groups in Parliament: to draw up a practical technical guide, which we are now awaiting from the Commission. This would help businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, to understand, apply and simply to manage the often quite complex actions they must undertake, especially as regards radiation from artificial sources. It would be a great result if this guide were also part of the directive.
I ask my colleagues and Parliament to support the version of the directive, and those proposed amendments to it, that create a balance between European-level provisions laying down minimum obligations and the practical possibilities and responsibilities of the Member States. I therefore ask you to support these compromises. Lastly, I would like to thank the ‘shadow rapporteurs’ of all the political groups, my colleagues and the representatives of the Council and the Commission. We have worked very hard in recent weeks, and I think we have worked well together."@en1
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