WIREDGOV

The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER I) approved the mandate for the Lithuanian EU Council Presidency to enter informal trilogues with a view to negotiating a first reading agreement with the European Parliament and European Commission on updating references and terminology of five EU Directives in the area of health and safety at work to bring them into line with the applicable EU chemical classification and labeling legislation.

The amendments will ensure the continued effectiveness of the occupational safety and health framework and thus will help to protect workers’ health and safety from risks due to exposure to chemicals at the workplace..

The Chair of the Committee ambassador Arūnas Vinčiūnas noted that, in view of on-going technological progress all five Directives should be subject to periodic review in order to ensure coherent legislation and a proper level of health and safety protection when hazardous chemical substances and mixtures are present in the working environment.

“It is important that good health and safety standards are not seen as constraints,” said the ambassador.

The Directives to be amended contain reference to EU chemical classification and labeling legislation which became outdated following the adoption of the Regulation 1272/2008 on Classification, Labeling and Packaging of substances and mixtures. It established a new system for the classification and labeling of substances and mixtures within the Union, based on the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) at international level.

Background

On 26 February 2013, the Commission submitted the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of The Council amending Council Directives 92/58/EEC, 92/85/EEC, 94/33/EC, 98/24/EC and Directive 2004/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, in order to align them to Regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008 on classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures.

Council Directives 92/58/EEC on minimum requirements for the provision of safety and/or health signs at work; 92/85/EEC on measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding; 94/33/EC on protection of young people at work; 98/24/EC on protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work; 2004/37/EC on protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens or mutagens at work contain references to the previous classification and labeling system. They should therefore be amended in order to align them to the new system laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008.

In the Council the examination of this legislative proposal started in May 2013. On 26 September 2013, the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL) voted amendments to the text.