Legal base: Article 285 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
Office for National Statistics (ONS). HSE has an interest.
This Regulation establishes a common framework for the systematic production of Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work. Previously, Member States provided health and safety statistics to Eurostat on the basis of ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ under the overall framework of the five-year European Community Statistical Programme.
The European Commission argues that this common framework will improve the quality and consistency of statistics across the European Community, and will help newer Member States, in particular, to bring their national statistical systems up to a standard comparable to other Member States.
The Regulation allows the European Commission (Eurostat) to adopt secondary Commission Regulations defining any additional public health and health and safety statistics that Member States would have to collect. However, the Regulation also requires Eurostat to:
The Commission first formally adopted the proposal and transmitted it to the Council and the European Parliament (EP) on 7 February 2007 (COM (2007) 46 final). The Regulation was finally adopted on 16 December 2008 and was published in the Official Journal on 31 December 2008 (OJ L 354, 31.12.2008, p.70).
HSE has been working closely with ONS and with the Department of Health and the Better Regulation Executive who also have an interest in the proposal.
The standard co-decision procedure applies. The proposal was considered by the EP's Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee together with an opinion from the Employment and Social Affairs Committee. The EP Committee Report and proposed amendments to the proposal were adopted on 9 October 2007. The First Reading in the EP on 13 November 2007 made minor amendments to the proposal which the Commission accepted.
The European Economic and Social Committee, which includes the social partners, gave its opinion on the proposal on 24 October 2007.
The Council Working Party on Statistics considered the proposal and reached agreement on a compromise text on 29 January 2008. Following discussion with the Slovenian Presidency, the EP indicated that it was willing to approve a common position at second reading without amendments on the basis of the agreed compromise text. The Council reached political agreement on the proposal on 9 June 2008.
The Regulation enters into force on 20 January 2009. Eurostat is expected to begin preparatory work on implementing regulations in 2009.
