Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending for the twenty third time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (substances classified as carcinogens, mutagens or substances toxic to reproduction — c/m/r)"
Date: 2001-09-12
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: animal breeding, carcinogenic substance, dangerous substance, marketing restriction, plant propagation, toxic substance

7.11.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 311/7

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Directive of the European
Parliament and of the Council amending for the twenty third time Council Directive 76/769/EEC
relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations
(substances classified as carcinogens, mutagens or substances toxic to reproduction — c/m/r)’

(2001/C 311/02)

On 19 June 2001, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 95
of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 25 July 2001. The rapporteur was
Mr Colombo.

At its 384th plenary session (meeting of 12 September 2001), the Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion unanimously.

1. Objective of the proposal

The Member States are to apply the provisions of the
1.4.
directive within 18 months of its entry into force, in accord-
ance with procedures which they are to determine themselves.

1.1.
The proposal is to update the appendix to points 29,
30 and 31 of Annex I of Directive 76/769/EEC (1), which
prohibits the use of substances included in that appendix
because they are classified as carcinogens, mutagens or sub-
stances toxic to reproduction. The basis for the proposal is the
provision made under Directive 94/60/EC (2) requiring the
Commission to submit
to the European Parliament and
Council proposals to add additional substances within six
months of the publication of new classifications.

1.2.
In continuation of the on-going process of bringing
Annex I of Directive 67/548/EEC (3) into line with technical
progress, 14 substances classified as carcinogens, three sub-
stances classified as mutagens and eight substances classified
as toxic to reproduction are to be added to points 29, 30 and
31 respectively.

1.3.
The aim of the proposal, like those before it, is to
achieve an ever higher level of protection for human health
and the environment, by creating the conditions for the proper
functioning of the internal market. It adds a further list of
substances to the annex, which will be added to the appendix
to points 29, 30 and 31 of Annex I of Directive 76/769/EEC
twenty days after the list is published in the Official Journal.

(1) OJ L 262, 27.9.1976, p. 201.
(2) OJ L 365, 31.12.1994, p. 1.
(3) OJ B 196, 16.8.1967, p. 1.

1.5.
The Commission considers that amendment of the
Directive is the only course of action available for meeting the
predefined objectives, as merely setting targets would not
guarantee a high level of protection for consumer health and
safety.

2. General comments

2.1.
In the light of the scientific considerations adopted, in
the absence of economic and employment-related conse-
quences, given the limited use of such substances, and
providing companies are informed in good time in order to
the Committee fully endorses the Com-
find substitutes,
mission’s initiative as it is intended to protect public health,
safety and the environment — causes which the Committee
has always supported.

2.2.
Nevertheless, this type of initiative often comes late in
the day and the Committee would therefore strongly urge the
Commission to act quickly on the White Paper on the Strategy
for a Future Chemicals Policy, which takes a preventive stance
and will be an important means of marrying a high level of
protection for public health, safety and the environment with
the promotion of an innovative and competitive chemicals
industry.

C 311/8

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

7.11.2001

2.3.
Given that this is the 23rd time the basic Directive has
been amended, the Committee would repeat its suggestion

that it should be revised, and on no account must this revision
be held up by the work relating to the chemicals white paper.

Brussels, 12 September 2001.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Göke FRERICHS

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Directive of the European
Parliament and of the Council on occurrence reporting in civil aviation’

(2001/C 311/03)

On 24 January 2001, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 80(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 17 July 2001. The rapporteur
was Mr Green.

At its 384th plenary session on 12 and 13 September 2001 (meeting of 12 September) the Economic
and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 89 votes in favour, with two abstentions.

1.

Introduction

1.1.
It is widely recognised that air transport is among the
safest modes of transport. Over the last ten years the annual
average number of deaths in commercial air transport was
1 243 per year in 49 accidents worldwide. Europe can report
an even more favourable situation as it only accounts for 10 %
of the accidents while it produces about a third of the air
traffic. In the Community, commercial air traffic provided by
average of
resulted in a
Community carriers
52 deaths (1).

yearly

1.2.
All the safety experts recognise however that the global
rate of accidents is merely stabilising; as a consequence, if
nothing is done to improve it, the growth in air traffic will
lead to an increase in the absolute number of fatal accidents
per year. It is therefore necessary to explore new ways of
improving air safety.

1.3.
Community accident prevention policy in the air
transport sector resulted, in November 1994, in the adoption
of a directive on the investigation of civil aviation accidents

(1) Source: Airclaims.

and incidents (2). That Directive aims at ensuring that any
accident or serious incident is properly investigated with the
objective of preventing its recurrence. However the limitations
of this approach are mainly that, as the number of accidents is
fortunately very low, the opportunities to learn from them are
limited and that lessons are drawn only after a tragedy has
already happened.

1.4.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)
confirms the need to collect data on incidents in standardised
forms so as to facilitate exchange of statistics and hence
analysis. Chapter 7 of Annex 13 to the Convention on
International Civil Aviation recommends that ‘States should
establish formal incident reporting systems to facilitate collec-
tion of information on actual or potential safety deficiencies’.

(2) Council Directive 94/56/EC of 21 November 1994 establishing
the fundamental principles governing the investigation of civil
aviation accidents and incidents. OJ L 319, 12.12.1994.