Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-22-Speech-2-270"
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"en.20021022.10.2-270"2
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"Mr President, the Commission document on health and safety at work is a good document. It talks of the importance of health and safety at work, of the need to strengthen the prevention culture and to secure a better application of existing law. I very much agree with all of that. It portrays the problem as follows: the preventive culture of EU directives has not yet been fully understood, nor has it been applied effectively on the ground. I agree. It admits that people tend to see the Community legal framework as being excessively complex and unclear and proposes that it be simplified and rationalised. I agree with that too.
I would have hoped that Parliament might have seen fit to endorse these Commission proposals, but the rapporteur has gone off in the opposite direction. He claims that, because Commission staffing has been reduced to some 40% of its 1992 levels, this indicates much lower priority within the Commission. This is nonsense. However, for some people all roads always lead to the standard socialist solution of more money, more people and more regulation.
I note the rapporteur graciously referred to the joint amendment we tabled, which was the great highlight in committee – perhaps it could be the highlight of his report. Colleagues may well hope this is the start of a great new partnership, but I suspect they may have to wait a little longer for it to blossom. We will hope together for progress.
Meanwhile, the rapporteur wants to extend the scope of the framework directive to propose new legislation on workplace bullying and a new directive on workplace ergonomics, strengthen the display screen equipment directive and amend the manual handling directive. All that appears on just the first page of his recommendations.
We do not need more directives. I suggest his conclusions are wrong because his analysis is wrong. The UK Conservative delegation will be voting against it and we will not be alone.
I would add that Ireland has just voted to allow the entry of applicant countries into the EU. If the applicant countries read the Hughes report, they may not want to join."@en1
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