Safety at work: work equipment, minimum requirements (amend. Directive 89/655/EEC)

The proposal for a directive sought to amend Directive 89/655/EEC on the minimum health and safety requirements for the use of operating machinery at the workplace. The new Directive was essentially aimed at: - progressively improving the safety and health protection of workers when using operating machinery; - harmonizing the minimum health and safety requirements which were to be met when using machinery and equipment, especially with regard to periodic inspections. The Directive set 31 December 2000 as the date by which equipment already in service was to be adapted to comply with the requirements. It also supplements the Annex to Directive 89/655/EEC by new minimum requirements which were to apply to a number of specific types of equipment: woodworking machines and presses requiring repeated manual intervention, mobile equipment, load-lifting equipment, scaffolding, equipment used for the detection of non-visible hazards and sealing guns. Other Annexes have been added relating to the use, in the strict sense of the word, of operating machinery and the conditions under which certain types of machine must be protected against the risk of overturning. Finally, the Directive included a non-exhaustive list of equipment which should be subject to a compulsory inspection schedule, together with the minimum standards of competence which had to be met to qualify for drawing up inspection schedules. Member States had until 31 December1996 to comply with this new Directive. �