The EU's co-legislators - Parliament and Council - reached agreement on the third revision of the Directive on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens and mutagens at work on Tuesday 29 January.
"Today's agreement on the Commission's third proposal will improve the working conditions of more than one million workers in the EU and prevent more than 22,000 cases of work-related diseases", said Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Marianne Thyssen at the agreement.
The agreement will provide better protection for workers in sectors such as nickel-cadmium battery production, zinc and copper smelting operations, laboratories, electronics, funerals and embalming, construction, healthcare, plastics and recycling, the Commissioner explained.
The directive makes it possible to reduce occupational exposure to five carcinogenic chemical agents: cadmium, beryllium, arsenic acid, formaldehyde and 4,4'-Methylenebis. The co-legislators have introduced several transitional periods for implementation from the date of entry into force of the directive: 8 years for cadmium, 7 years for beryllium, 4 years for arsenic acid.
For formaldehyde, no transitional period has been introduced, except for the health and funeral and body embalming sectors, which includes a period of 5 years, with a transitional limit value of 0.5 ppm, compared to 0.3 ppm in the initial proposal.
Dermal sensitisation (skin monitoring for formaldehyde, and skin and respiratory monitoring for beryllium) has been incorporated into the directive, with the addition of a recital providing for the possible future integration of new substances. This point will be reworked at a final technical meeting on Thursday, January 31. In addition, the European Commission is invited by the co-legislators to carry out an evaluation on cytotoxic medicines (chemotherapy) in mid-2020. If necessary, if the evaluation requires it, the Commission will have to amend the Directive again to introduce limit values for these substances as well.
As regards cadmium, the political agreement ensures that Member States already carrying out biomonitoring (urine testing) for this substance can continue to do so during the transitional period. On this point, the co-legislators are requesting an evaluation from the European Commission within three years of entry into force, to determine the need to combine biological levels with levels in the air. The agreement provides in its recitals for the need to provide financial assistance to SMEs and microenterprises to comply with the new requirements of the directive. In addition, the co-legislators have included an explicit reference to the classification issued by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) a World Health Organisation (WHO) agency.
The text must now be discussed in the Parliament and the Council before its final adoption and publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. Editing by lawyer-linguists, which generally takes 8 weeks, may take longer due to a very large number of texts currently being adopted. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)