WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1394/96 by Cristiana MUSCARDINI to the Commission. Introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety of workers
Date: 1996-06-06
Institutions: European Parliament, MUSCARDINI
Subjects: Court of Justice of the European Union, application of EU law, case-law, free competition, industrial structures, interpretation of the law, labour standard, occupational safety, safety standard













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91996E1394

WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1394/96 by Cristiana MUSCARDINI to the Commission. Introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety of workers  


Official Journal C 305 , 15/10/1996 P. 0093 





WRITTEN QUESTION E-1394/96 by Cristiana Muscardini (NI) to the Commission (6 June 1996)Subject: Introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety of workersHow can the Commission reconcile the notion of the company with the principle of free competition when Directive 89/391/EEC ((OJ L 183 of 29.6.1989, p. 1. )) makes the protection of health at the workplace depend on the obligations of an employer who owns a company, or in other words an establishment and thus identifies the workplace with such a term?How can the Commission maintain that the Member States may adapt some measures relating to the employer in the light of the nature of the activities and size of the undertakings when the Court of Justice provides that Community directives are not satisfactorily applied unless they are applied in a restrictive sense, thus not allowing the Member States to adopt the provisions to a level lower than the minimum requirements set out in the directives?How can the Commission claim that the Member States are not obliged to impose rigid protection and prevention structures on professions when it has previously stated that these directives should be fully applied to professional people, including intellectuals?Which EU Member States, if any, have applied Directive 89/391/EEC to persons exercising intellectual professions protected by membership of a professional register?Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission (2 July 1996)The concept of 'undertaking' within the meaning of Directive 89/391/EEC does not relate to specific categories of workplace, and the provisions of the Directive apply to any natural or legal person who has an employment relationship with a worker and is responsible for the undertaking or establishment.This flexibility is a direct result of the nature of the directives based on Article 118a of the EC Treaty and containing minimum requirements which Member States are free to make more stringent. Furthermore, certain provisions of the framework Directive, for example Article 7 (7) on protective and preventive services and Article 9 (2) concerning various obligations on employers, allow Member States to tailor implementation to criteria such as the nature of activities and the size of the undertaking.The fact that the provisions of the directives relating to health and safety at work apply in full to workers employed by employers exercising liberal professions necessarily implies that those professions can also benefit from the flexibility described above.At the moment, the Commission is not aware of any Member State having excluded workers employed by employers exercising liberal professions from the scope of national measures transposing the framework and individual Directives.