Occupational safety and health: risks related to chemical agents (14th particular Directive, Directive 89/391/EEC)

The Commission presented a working document accompanying the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the modernisation of the EU occupational safety and health legislation and policy.

The detailed ex-post evaluation of the EU acquis, checking their relevance as well as efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and EU added value, carried out by the Commission confirms that the framework meets its ambition to adequately protect workers.

Main conclusions: the evaluation concluded that the overall structure of the EU occupational safety and health acquis, consisting of a goal-oriented Framework Directive complemented by specific Directives, is generally effective and fit-for-purpose.

However, it pointed to specific provisions of individual Directives that have become outdated or obsolete, and highlighted the need to find effective ways to address new risks.

The way in which Member States have transposed the EU occupational safety and health Directives varies considerably across Member States. Compliance costs therefore vary and cannot be easily dissociated from more detailed national requirements.

As regards SMEs: the evaluation clearly concluded that compliance with the occupational safety and health Directives is more challenging for SMEs than large establishments, while at the same time the major and fatal injury rates are higher for SMEs. Specific support measures are therefore necessary to reach SMEs and help them increase their compliance in an efficient and effective way.

Next steps: the evaluation considered that occupational safety and health measures should reach the widest number of people at work, no matter the type of working relationship they are in, and no matter the size of company they work for. Compliance with occupational safety and health rules should be manageable for businesses of all sizes and effectively monitored on the ground.

Measures must be result-oriented, instead of paper-driven, and maximum use should be made of new digital tools to facilitate implementation.

Characteristics of the evaluation: this exercise also forms part of the Commission's Regulatory Fitness (REFIT) Programme with a special focus on SMEs. In this respect, the evaluation concentrated both on Framework Directive 89/391/EEC and on the other 23 directives related to it.

As regards the evaluation of Council Directive 98/24/EC on the protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work (fourteenth individual directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC), the report concluded that an updated, simplified and quicker legal procedure for the adoption of occupational exposure limit values (OELs) could be considered.

The following issues will need to be considered:

• the need to adopt values for more substances for better chemical risks management in the future, based on duly justified reasoning;
• the need to develop the approach taken for identifying priority substances for evaluation by the Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limits (SCOEL);
• the simplification of the procedures to set occupational limit values at EU level could also lead to improving the management of interface and further enhance synergies between OSH and other EU requirements such as REACH and CLP;
• the need to consider the most appropriate approach to managing risks that may arise from exposure to reprotoxic substances;
• the need to consider if and how biomonitoring could be used more effectively for workplace risk management;
• the need to consider the potential adverse effects arising from exposure to dusts with low specific toxicity.

Lastly, the evaluation stressed the need for further EU guidelines regarding its implementation.