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

The Commission has amended this proposal for a directive in the wake of Parliament's opinion. The amended proposal maintains the structure and objectives of the initial proposal but clarifies, details and expands on certain provisions. The main changes are as follows: - the safety document must identify all risks resulting from the intrinsic properties of agents, alone or in combination; - the specific protective and preventive measures taken by the employer have been extended (provision made for training in risks, provision of adequate protective equipment etc.), as has information for workers on the dangers inherent in chemical products; - levels of occupational exposure have now become "limits of occupational exposure" and "biological limit values": these limits must be examined by the advisory committee on safety, hygiene and health protection of workers and should be construed as limit values on all the Member States. These values will be reviewed every 5 years; - a heading has been added in the annexes on requirements relating to measuring methods. However, the Commission did not agree that the scope of this directive should be extended to independents. Nor did it agree to a lower biological limit value for women, because provision for this had already been made in the "pregnant women" directive. Finally, it did not accept the grading of risks described as "insignificant" as this was too vague.�