Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr Skinner for his commendable report on this complex issue of health and safety requirements for the use of work equipment, and also for being willing to adopt important proposals put forward by the Group. Mr Perez Alvarez has already gone into this. I am not happy on every count. A certain amount of amendment will be necessary prior to the second reading, but the Group is prepared to accept the report overall. The report in its present form even takes account of objections raised by small- and medium-sized enterprises, and calls for experts to be involved, but, of course, only where the setting up of ladders and scaffolding equipment at the workplace is concerned. As is surely the case with all legal texts at national – and at regional level for that matter – some of the phraseology might raise a smile, if you can call any of it a laughing matter that is. The smile certainly drained from my face when I read the European-wide statistics on accidents in the workplace, and on hearing them just now. I do not intend to go further into the facts and figures, as we have already heard a great deal on that score. But there is one fundamental point I would like to make. Safety measures are not the only things that cost. Continued payment of wages, sick pay, invalidity, widows’ and orphans’ allowances are a drain on business and on the national economy. This is how productive a moderate social policy is. Preventive action is also better, cheaper and more humane than a social policy that deals with the consequences. It is no good shutting the stable door when the horse has bolted; you need to make sure it is shut to start with. ‘But what about subsidiarity?’, goes the common cry. This principle is not meant to render Europe completely inert! I like the definition provided in Quadragesimo anno the best: subsidiarity – gives right of way in cases of doubt to smaller living entities and to solutions reached by social partners, in the face of State, or – I might well add – EU rulings. But if the smaller entity is unable to perform its tasks in the interests of the public good, then the larger entity must step in. This explains why so many European minimum standards were laid down in the EU Treaties in the eighties, when and Conservatives had the monopoly on power in Europe; in other words, it is a Christian Democrat affair. Incidentally, health and safety regulations have been organised at international level since the industrial revolution in the 19th century. The great Conservative British statesman Benjamin Disraeli was one of the pioneers of health and safety regulations. Continental Europe took its cue from England, adopted these laws and also enshrined them in international conventions, doing so from the very outset. In view of globalisation and Europeanisation, there is without doubt a need for the European social dimension in the 21st century. We want to Europeanise the economy. We have the single currency. It cannot be the answer to deal with social policy at a purely regional, or even provincial, level. Minimum standards mean subsidiarity. Each country can frame its own health and safety regulations provided that European minimum standards are observed. We Group Members are opposed to European maximum standards. In Germany the picture is completed by legal acts introduced by the social partners. There are German standards and health and safety regulations for the workplace. We also have statutes such as legal acts governing professional trade associations, not to mention the accident prevention law. Incidentally, it is all very well for people to be critical – for stylistic reasons among others – of the fact that we have a whole host of detailed regulations. I tell you this though; a fraction of these practical regulations would do the citizens and workers of the Member States a greater service than reams and reams of fancy talk and great ideologies.

Political group: PPE-DE