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

The Commission regrets that the common position has considerably weakened the Commission's proposal since provisions considered essential for the protection of the health and safety of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres have been removed. For this reason, the Commission maintains its reservations against the following deletions from the amended proposal: - the requirement to regularly review the measures to prevent and to protect against explosions at least once a year was considered essential as the concept of "regular review" is imprecise and lies within the discretion of the employer; - the reintroduction of requirements on appropriate supervision and on the competent workers was judged essential since work in potentially explosive atmospheres represents a specific risk to workers and the provisions of the framework directive are not sufficiently specific in this regard; - the Commission could not agree with the deletion of requirements relating to the criteria for the selection of equipment and protective systems, since directive 94/9/EC is not applicable to equipment already in use. Without these requirements, workers will be exposed to risks relating to old equipment for which no community obligation exists, until the replacement of this old equipment takes place.�