Safety and health of workers: protection against risk from explosive atmospheres

The European Commission's amended proposal incorporates, in full or in part, 10 of the 14 amendments approved by the European Parliament at first reading. The main amendments incorporated cover the following points: - appropriate supervision of workers, using monitoring devices and modern technical means (however, the Commission has not accepted the part of the amendment on the training of workers and the designation of a responsible employer where workers from several undertakings are present at the same workplace), - the obligation to draw up an explosion protection document and keep it up to date, - requirements relating to work equipment in use before entry into force of the Directive, - preparation of a vademecum setting out general guidelines, - information for SMEs on the main provisions of the directive, - amendment of the Annex on 'explosion zones', which must be assessed on the basis of their normal operation. The Commission has not accepted the amendment relating to the date of entry into force of the Directive (24 months after adoption). It proposes 31 December 1999 as the date for transposition of in the Member States. A second parallel group of amendments introduced by the Commission cover editorial and linguistic aspects and attempt to make the text of the proposal consistent with that of Directive 94/9/EC on protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres. �