WRITTEN QUESTION E-1453/01

by Alexandros Alavanos (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(17 May 2001)

Subject: Record of industrial accidents and occupational diseases

Despite the fact that funding has been provided under the second Community Support Framework, Greece is the only country in the European Union which does not have a reliable system of recording industrial accidents and occupational diseases, making it extremely difficult for the government to intervene on health and safety issues. At the present time, industrial accidents and occupational diseases are recorded by only one social security agency, the IKA (Social Security Institution), and only in respect of its own contributors who total some 45 % of the labour force. Moreover, there are no records of occupational diseases.

What steps will the Commission take, in co-operation with the competent Greek authorities, to enable Greece to acquire a reliable system of recording industrial accidents and occupational diseases?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(24 July 2001)

The Commission shares the Honourable Member's concern about the need for reliable recording of industrial accidents and occupational diseases in the Community.

Since 1990, the Commission, the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) and the Employment and Social Affairs Directorate-General, have been working together with the Member States under a gentlemen's agreement on the harmonisation of European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW Project)(1) and European Occupational Diseases Statistics (EODS Project)(2). The aim of this work is to harmonise the criteria and methodologies to be used for recording data on industrial accidents and occupational diseases.

Under Article 9(1)(c) and (d) of the framework Directive (89/391/EEC(3)), the employer must keep a list of occupational accidents resulting in a worker being unfit for work for more than three working days and draw up, for the responsible authorities and in accordance with national laws and/or practices, reports on occupational accidents suffered by his workers. ESAW data (accidents involving the loss of more than three days' work or fatal accidents) are currently available for the period 1993-1998 and include information on the economic activity and size of the business, the age, sex, nationality, occupation and employment status of the victim, the nature of the injury and the part of the body concerned, the geographical location, the date and time of the accident and the consequences of the accident, i.e. number of days lost, permanent incapacity or death. A final set of variables permitting the identification and investigation of the causes of industrial accidents and the circumstances

in which they took place has now been introduced with a view to promoting an active policy for the prevention of industrial accidents at European level (Phase III). Phase III data will gradually become available for the reference years 2001 to 2004.

Under the EODS project, work has started on the basis of a pilot project on cases recognised in 1995 involving 31 items in the schedule of occupational diseases drawn up by the Commission in Recommendation 90/326/EEC of 22 May 1990(4). Taking account of the findings of this pilot project, the methodology for an initial EODS phase developed by the FIOH(5) has just been completed. It comprises the following variables: Member State, age, sex, occupation on the date of exposure, economic activity of the business on the date of exposure, medical diagnosis, causal agent, product containing the causal agent (if chemical or biological), seriousness (temporary or permanent incapacity) and the year in which the first case was recognised and the seriousness of the case in question. Phase I of data collection for the EODS project will begin in 2001 and will concern the cases of occupational disease recognised for the first time and all deaths resulting from an occupational disease during the year.

As for the situation in Greece, a distinction must be made between statistics on industrial accidents and statistics on occupational diseases.

In the case of industrial accidents, in the field covered by the IKA(6) the data are collected and are available at national level. They are also sent to Eurostat in accordance with the ESAW methodology and included in the European data. The IKA, the Ministry of Labour and the national statistical institute collaborate on the coding and forwarding of the ESAW data and on preparing the implementation of Phase III in Greece. Two problems are still unsolved but they are duly taken into account and corrected under the ESAW methodology. In the field covered by the IKA, only some of the industrial accidents resulting in the loss of more than three working days are declared. According to the IKA, 39 % of accidents are declared. This is comparable to the level in Denmark, Ireland or the United Kingdom (46 %, 38 % and 43 % respectively). For all the Member States in this situation, Eurostat corrects the number of accidents declared on the basis of the declaration rate so as to estimate the actual number of accidents (100 %). The latter figures are used in publications and for calculating the accident rate (number of accidents per 100 000 persons in employment). On the other hand, as the Honourable Member points out, only the data in the IKA field, covering around 45 % of persons employed in Greece, are included. The IKA field corresponds to paid workers in the private sector, which also is the population covered by the ESAW data of many other Member States (Belgium and France in particular only strictly cover that field). However, it is Greece's peculiarities in terms of the employment status of the workforce that lead to only 45 % of workers being covered, since in Greece in 1999 employers, self-employed persons and family workers accounted for 43,4 % of the total number of persons with a job, compared with an average of 16,2 % in the Community as a whole (source: Community Labour Force Survey, Eurostat). However, in order to calculate the accident rate, Eurostat relates the number of accidents to the number of workers actually covered by the ESAW data.

As regards occupational diseases, while the European schedule does not present any major problems in the case of Greece, the national procedure for recognising occupational diseases is cumbersome in that country and probably not all cases are recorded. The data sent to Eurostat in connection with the EODS pilot collection of data on occupational diseases recognised in 1995 were very limited (92 cases out of a total of more than 57 000 for Europe as a whole). In its final evaluation report on these data, the FIOH(7) noted in particular that the data for Greece did not represent the total workforce, that data on the coverage of the national systems were not available for Greece, and that Greece had therefore often had to be excluded from the analysis. Eurostat has, however, been informed that a working party comprising representatives of the IKA and other institutions concerned has been set up by the Ministry of Labour to examine possible ways of improving the data on occupational disease in Greece. The Commission helps the Member States and Greece in particular in this process of improvement by disseminating, through its working parties and publications, the EODS methodology(8) and the good practices applied in other Member States.

(1) ESAW: European Statistics of Accidents at Work.

(2) EODS: European Occupational Diseases Statistics.

(3) Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work (OJ L 183, 29.6.1989).

(4) 90/326/EEC: Commission Recommendation of 22 May 1990 to the Member States concerning the adoption of a European schedule of occupational diseases (OJ L 160, 26.6.1990).

(5) FIOH: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

(6) IKA: Greek Social Security Institution occupational accidents and diseases private sector employees.

(7) Eurostat Working Paper, Population and social conditions 3/1999/E/No 2.

(8) Eurostat Working Paper, Population and social conditions 3/2000/E/Nos 18 and 19.