Legal base: Article 137(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
HSE
The 1989 Framework Directive on Health and Safety and its daughter Directives, contain provisions requiring Member States to report to the EC on the practical implementation of a number of occupational safety and health directives at either four or five-yearly intervals.
This proposal is the first occupational safety and health proposal to come from the EC’s simplification plan from its Communication, ‘Implementing the Community Lisbon programme: A strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment’, published in October 2005.
The proposal completed two stages of social partner consultation at the European level in 2005. The European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Safety and Health at Work approved the proposal via its fast-track procedure.
The proposal seeks to simplify and rationalise the reporting process by:
The proposal will extend the reporting obligations to include Directives 2000/54/EC, 2004/37/EC and 83/477/EC on biological agents, carcinogens and asbestos respectively.
Council negotiations began on 12 October 2006.
The Directive was adopted at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council in May 2007 and came into force 21 June 2007, the day after its publication in the Official Journal (Reference: L165/21).
The European Commissions Advisory Committee for Safety and Health at Work will be developing the structure and content of the reports and have set up a dedicated working party to do this.
