Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "Proposal for a Council Directive on the Protection of workers from the risks related to exposure of carcinogens at work (Sixth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16 (1) of Directive 89/391/EEC)"

(1999/C 368/07)

On 17 May 1999 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 30 September 1999. The rapporteur was Mr Thomas Etty.

At its 367th plenary session (meeting of 20 October 1999), the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 97 votes in favour and one vote against, with two abstentions.

1. The Committee agrees in general terms with the Commission that it is important to simplify and clarify Community law, without affecting the level of protection. This is certainly desirable in the area of occupational safety and health legislation where the architecture of existing instruments has become, in some cases, very complicated.

2. It notes that the purpose of the consolidation operation will not involve changes of substance to the present legislation.

3. The Committee also notes that the Commission's decision of 1 April 1987 states that all legislation measures should be consolidated after no more than ten amendments (as a minimum requirement). The Carcinogens Directive of 1990(1) had been amended just once when the Commission presented its proposal of 8 April 1999. Meanwhile, the Council Directive has been amended for a second time on 29 April 1999.

The Committee thinks that codification efforts should start where the need for creating transparency is most urgent. The Commission should try to avoid a situation where a proposal for codification will almost immediately be followed by a new proposal for an amendment.

In this case, the reason for the early Commission proposal was because of questions relating to the field of application: initially, the Directive limited protection of workers to substances classified at Community level; after the first amendment, the field of application was widened to substances recognized as carcinogenic by other authoritative bodies.

The Committee understands that the preparations for including a second amendment in the codification process are well advanced. It therefore expects the new proposal to be adopted shortly.

4. The Committee fully agrees with the present proposal.

5. As this is the first proposal of this sort in the policy area concerned, brought to the attention of the Committee, it wishes to express itself on the more general aspects of the codification process as regards occupational safety and health legislation:

- taking into account point 2 above, if there are differences of nuance of protection among instruments selected for codification, the provisions most favourable to safety and health at work must apply;

- if such instruments contain exemptions, e.g. excluded sectors, the codification should trigger immediately a discussion in the relevant EU services and bodies whether and which exemptions are still justified, and conclusions should be drawn and implemented expediently;

- codification is not only important in order to make legislation clearer and more accessible to the ordinary citizen of the EU, but also with a view to the governments, parliaments and socio-economic interest groups in the candidate Member States of the EU, in particular those in Central and Eastern Europe. In this connection, the Committee once again pleads for stronger cooperation with the relevant parties in these countries in the field of occupational safety and health;

- the Committee realises that codification is not only a matter of concern of DG V but to a large degree of the legal services of the Commission. Nevertheless, it wishes to reiterate its earlier proposals to the Commission to ensure that all relevant resources of DG V will be kept at a level enabling them to fulfill their tasks adequately.

- If, as is hoped, the codification process makes Community law clearer and more accessible, DG V could explore the possibility of supplementary instruments and measures to promote better implementation of existing legislation.

Brussels, 20 October 1999.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice RANGONI MACHIAVELLI

(1) Directive 90/394/EEC, OJ L 196, 26.7.1990.