7. 3. 90 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 56/1 
II 
(Preparatory Acts) 
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion on the draft proposal for a Council Directive on the operational protection of 
outside workers exposed to ionizing radiation during their activities in installations in which 
such radiation is used 
(90/C 56/01) 
On 28 August 1989 the Commission decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, 
under Article 31 of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, on the 
abovementioned draft proposal. 
The Section for Energy, Nuclear Questions and Research, which was responsible for preparing 
the Committee's work on the matter, adopted its opinion on 3 November 1989. The 
rapporteur was Mr von der Decken. 
At its 271st plenary session (meeting of 15 November 1989), the Economic and Social 
Committee unanimously adopted the following opinion. 
Unqualified approval is given to the efforts to introduce 
a Community Directive to protect 'outside' workers 
who are exposed in the course of their work to ionizing 
radiation. The present proposal would seem to largely 
satisfy the need to protect the health of this group of 
workers. The Commission is nevertheless asked to take 
into account the views expressed in this opinion when 
drawing up the final Directive. 
1. Current relevant Community provision in the field 
of radiation protection 
1.1. Current Directives 
1.1.1. The basic safety standards providing Member 
States of the European Community with a framework 
for protection of the health of the general public and 
workers against the dangers arising from ionizing radi­
ation, are set out in Council Directive 80/836/Eura-
tom(1), as amended by Council Directive 84/467/ 
Euratom (2). 
1.1.2. The 1980 Directive also enumerates the necess­
ary safety measures and monitoring systems applicable 
to workers exposed to radiation and expressly states 
that such measures apply to both 'internal' and 'exter­
nal' workers. 1.1.3. Council Directive 89/391/EEC(3) also lays 
down minimum provisions covering measures required 
to achieve optimum safety and health protection for 
workers. 
1.2. Relevant concepts 
1.2.1. For a better understanding of the comments 
made in this opinion, the Committee would first recall 
some of the definitions of relevance to the subject, 
and which are laid down in Council Directive 80/836/ 
Euratom: 
— exposed workers: persons subjected, as a result of 
their work, to an exposure liable to result in annual 
doses exceeding one-tenth of the annual dose limits 
laid down for workers, 
— controlled area: an area in which doses are liable 
to exceed three-tenths of the annual dose limits laid 
down for exposed workers, 
— supervised area: an area in which doses are liable 
to exceed one-tenth but be less than three-tenths 
of the annual dose limits laid down for exposed 
workers, 
— category A workers: persons who are liable to 
receive a dose greater than three-tenths of one of 
the annual dose limits, 
(') OJ No L 246, 17. 9. 1980, p. 1. 
(2) OJ No L 265,5. 10. 1984, P. 4. (3) OJNoL 183,29.6. 1989, p. 1. 
No C 56/2 Official Journal of the European Communities 7. 3. 90 
category B workers: persons who are not liable to 
receive a dose greater than three-tenths of the annual 
dose limits. 
1.3. Experience of worker protection 
1.3.1. In installations where workers are exposed to 
radiation, the monitoring of radiation protection has 
been generally satisfactory. 
1.3.2. The one weak point however is the optimum 
protection of workers who work in several plants in 
the course of one year but are not employed by the 
undertaking operating the plants (outside or temporary 
workers). The main difficulty concerns keeping track 
of various doses received. 
2. General comments on the proposed Directive 
2.1. Justification for such a Directive 
2.1.1. Experience in most Member States seems to 
show that the Community needs a generally applicable 
Directive which will afford optimum protection for 
workers who are exposed to radiation but are not 
employed by operators of plants requiring authoriz­
ation to operate. 
2.1.2. Some Member States already have provisions 
for monitoring the exposure of such outside workers. 
In a European Community, however, nothing short of a 
Directive with harmonized provisions can (a) guarantee 
that workers are protected from unacceptable exposure 
and (b) remove unacceptable distortions of compete-
tion. 
2.1.3. The present Directive, basing itself on Council 
Directive 80/836/Euratom, concentrates exclusively on 
the protection of exposed category A workers. But 
since the definitions of supervised and controlled areas 
merely stipulate annual dose limits and not dose rates, 
steps must be taken to ensure that the doses accumu­
lated by outside workers working even in supervised 
areas are also taken into consideration when taking 
stock of the annual doses. 
2.2. Responsibility for radiation protection 
2.2.1. Since the outside workers is not employed by 
the operator of the installation where he carries out his 
tasks (and where protection needs to be given), the 
allocation of responsibilities for radiation protection is 
particularly important. 2.2.2. The draft Directive in question proposes that 
responsibility for basic training in radiation protection, 
for the necessary medical examination and for the docu­
mentation relating to radiation doses received by the 
worker lies with the worker's employer; in that respect, 
the Committee would emphasize the special responsi­
bility which rests on the employer to make sure that 
the radiation passport, or similar document, held by 
the workers is not duplicated. 
As for the operator of the installation he has the 
responsibility for 'active' on-the-spot radiation protec­
tion, including instruction on the specific radiation 
protection and safety features of his installation. 
2.2.3. The grey area between the two is to be covered 
by the fact that prior to taking on an outside worker 
the operator of the installation will examine his 
'acceptability certificate' so as to ensure that the requi­
site basic conditions have been satisfied. The respective 
areas of responsibility are thus clearly defined. 
2.2.4. The Directive should nevertheless also men­
tion the worker's own responsibilities, as laid down in 
Directive 89/391/EEC on general worker safety. Under 
this Directive the worker is obliged, among other things, 
to observe radiation protection regulations, to carry a 
personal dosimeter in the appropriate manner and to 
perform his work in such a way that his personal dose 
is minimized. In the Committee's view, this requires 
appropriate training of the workers concerned and also 
that adequate information be given to them in a stand­
ardized way. 
3. Specific comments on the draft Directive 
3.1. Article 2 (2) and (3) 
It should be made clear that the definitions given here 
refer only to category A workers (i.e. work performed 
in a controlled area). 
3.2. Article 5 (3) 
It is proposed for the sake of completeness that a further 
subparagraph be added reading as follows: 
'(f) checking to make sure that page 1 of the 
"acceptability certificate for outside workers 
exposed to ionizing radiation" (cf Appendix) 
has been duly filled out and signed by the 
employer.' 
3.3. Page 1 of the acceptability certificate must con­
tain the date of issue as well as the signature. 
3.4. Page 2 of the acceptability certificate 
— Point 11: it is not absolutely clear what is meant by 
'instruction in radiation protection'. 
7. 3. 90 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 56/3 
— The breakdown under point 13 should be explained 
in relationship to the table. Furthermore, statistics 
on doses must be signed by the head of the author-
Done at Brussels, 15 November 1989. 
1. Introduction 
1.1. The circulation of goods to prevent or cure 
diseases or physiological disturbances in man, animals 
and plants, falls far short of the ideal as envisaged 
by the Treaty of Rome and reinforced by the Single 
European Act. 
1.2. However, with the approach of 1993 and the 
needs for the completion of the internal market, import­
ant steps forward have already been taken towards the 
building of a genuine European human and veterinary 
pharmaceutical market. 
1.3. Up until now similar positive decisions have not 
been taken in the area of plant health and the Com­
mittee thus welcomes and notes with interest the present 
proposal for a Directive aimed at helping to fill such 
a gap and representing a first attempt towards the 
harmonization of a Community system which would 
lead to the expectation of a safe and competitive free 
circulation of phytopharmaceutical products in the 
future. ized radiation data recording centre. (By contrast, 
page 2 of the acceptability certificate is signed by 
the operator in question.) 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alberro MASPRONE 
1.4. In 1977, the Economic and Social Committee 
was asked and gave its opinion on proposals for Council 
Directives covering both the classification, packaging 
and labelling of dangerous preparations (pesticides) (2), 
and the prohibiting of the placing on the market and 
use of plant protection products containing certain 
active substances (3). In the preamble to the former it 
was clearly stated that 'in addition it would be necessary 
to include in later Directives, special provisions con­
cerning the authorization, distribution and use of these 
(plant-protection) pesticides'. 
1.5. Subsequently a proposal for a Directive for the 
homologation/registration system entitled 'The placing 
of EEC-accepted plant-protection products on the mar­
ket' was put forward and received the endorsement of 
the Committee (4). 
1.6. The 'classification, packaging and labelling' 
proposal was subsequently adopted in Directive Opinion on the amended proposal for a Council Directive concerning the placing of EEC-
accepted plant-protection products on the market (J) 
(90/C 56/02) 
On 9 March 1989, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, 
under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, on the 
abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs, which 
was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 
31 October 1989. The rapporteur was Mr Rolao Goncalves. 
At its 271st plenary session (meeting of 16 November 1989), the Economic and Social 
Committee adopted the following opinion by 34 votes to 0, with 2 abstentions. 
(!) OJ No C 89, 10. 4. 1989. (2) OJ No C 263, 17. 11. 1975, p. 64. 
(3) OJ No C 114, 11. .5. 1977, p. 16 (Special comments B). 
(4) OJ No C 114, 11. 5. 1977, p. 16 (Special comments A).