Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-13-Speech-1-186"
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"en.20060213.16.1-186"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, who would not be in favour of protecting people against dangerous artificial optical rays, such as lasers, at their place of work? Yet we Christian Democrats were opposed to regulations on such natural optical rays as sunlight. Would building workers be allowed to work in the open air only with protective headgear and long shirts? Would the lifeguards in swimming pools be virtually wholly wrapped up? Would waitresses in beer gardens have to cover up their
? Was all this really to be imposed uniformly right across Europe? We supported German building workers when they demonstrated in front of the Parliament building here in Strasbourg – an event that got a very strong helping hand from the European People Party’s SME group – my group’s tradesmen – and from the British members of our Group’s European Democrat wing, including the energetic Mr Bushill-Matthews. By means of amendments, first in the lead committee – the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs – and then in the plenary, we got a majority in favour of doing away with the mandatory health checks and with expensive action programmes against sunburn, which would have laid still more administrative burdens on the backs of small and medium-sized enterprises. We voted for solutions founded upon the solidarity principle, with the Member States themselves deciding on what measures they regarded as reasonable, adapted to the most diverse weather conditions and, of course, also to different skin sensitivities, all of which vary from one country to another.
I might add that, in the Conciliation Committee, of which I was a member, it did not take us long to reach a workable compromise with the Commission and the Council. We withdrew our demand for the application of the subsidiarity principle in return for the deletion of the references to natural optical radiation, which were not replaced by anything else. The title of the draft directive now refers to ‘artificial optical radiation’.
I wish to thank, once again, our rapporteur, Mr Öry, for the work he has done. Together, we have highlighted the need for decisions at European level to be workable in everyday life. The European Union should spend less time on peripheral issues and a great deal more on the problems that really matter, such as the fight against unemployment and campaigns for sustainable protection for the environment and for effective cooperation in internal and external security. I very much hope that this good outcome from the conciliation committee will be reflected by a clear majority when we vote tomorrow."@en1
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