Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-033"
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"Mr President, the Commission and the Council are aware that protection against risks from natural sources should be the subject of differential treatment, and the common position reflects this difference. I shall therefore explain in detail the Commission’s position on the amendments. I very much wish firstly to thank Parliament for its work and for the debate that has taken place. During the long and difficult legislative process, the Commission has been keen to do everything to ensure that this document still offers a high level of protection for workers, while avoiding discriminating between workers exposed to similar risks, and that it does so in compliance with framework Directive 89/391 and while ensuring the necessary proportionality. The aim has been to enable a compromise acceptable to all the institutions concerned to be reached by the end of the process. The Commission is not, then, able to accept what is stated, particularly in a number of newspapers, to the effect that the text of the common position is the result of a fruitless exercise, likely to give Europeans an image of the European Union as something sterile and bureaucratic. The Commission thinks that the common position is a balanced text responding to the real dangers constituted by the eye diseases and skin cancers, or melanomas, that are an issue for all Europeans and thinks that it is perfectly in keeping with the terms of the European Parliament’s recent resolution on the promotion of health and safety. Obviously, ways must be found of avoiding what could be pointless burdens on our companies and, as many have emphasised, on small and medium-sized companies in particular. Amendments 1, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 36 on the one hand emphasise the need for early detection of health effects and, on the other hand, specify the level of qualifications required by those responsible for medical surveillance. The Commission is able to accept these amendments. The Commission is also able to accept Amendments 2, 3, 6, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 34 and 35. They improve the text and reinforce and clarify the meaning of the provision concerned.
The Commission cannot, however, accept, as they stand, Amendments 5, 7 and 37 which propose giving each Member State the competence to legislate on the appropriateness, or otherwise, of employers assessing the risks in the case of exposure to natural sources of radiation. Beyond the considerations of protecting workers’ health to which I referred a few moments ago, such provisions would, in fact, be contrary to the obligations imposed on employers by framework Directive 89/391 to take account of all the risks and to make an assessment of the risks in all cases. Adopting these amendments – and I would lay some stress upon this, since it is an important point of law – would involve something of a transfer of responsibility from the employer to the national legislator. Where employment law and working conditions are concerned, this would, I believe, pose a real problem and would not, in my opinion, make the task an easy one for countries to carry out. I would therefore emphasise this point.
Similarly, and even if it understands the reasons that may lie behind them, the Commission cannot accept Amendment 18 in favour of rejecting the common position, Amendments 21 and 24 that exclude, in particular, taking account of particularly vulnerable risk groups or the effects of interaction with photosensitive substances, and the full range of Amendments 19 to 23 and 25 to 33 which exclude optical radiation from natural sources from the scope of the directive. The Commission intends working with Parliament and the Council to find a solution enabling the directive to be adopted as soon as possible.
Regarding Amendments 4 and 13, which introduce a provision asking it to draw up a practical guide, the Commission is ready to examine the best way of responding to this. At the same time, it is concerned to avoid procedures that might impair the wording of Community legislation governed by an interinstitutional agreement.
So there we have it, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The Commission wants the amendments that will be adopted tomorrow to enable the text of the new directive entirely to fulfil the objectives laid down by Article 137 of the Treaty when it comes to workers’ health and social protection. I would take the liberty of emphasising personally the quality of the compromise arrived at. This has been done by differentiating properly between sources of risk and by authorising – in a simple way, I believe, particularly for risks arising from natural sources – a number of precautionary measures of which it will be a simple matter to remind workers in the interests of their health and which thus complete the provisions enabling the health of workers in Europe to be protected and to be so without our entering into a wealth of detail and complications.
That is why, Mr President, I think that this compromise genuinely deserves Parliament’s undivided attention."@en1
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