Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew Europe, French) is the European Parliament rapporteur on the revision of the directive on occupational exposure to asbestos, on which the Council of the EU had already voted on in December (see EUROPE 13072/4). As she published her draft report on 18 January, she explains to EUROPE the main lines of her work. (Interview by Solenn Paulic)
Agence Europe - The Council of the EU retained the exposure limit value proposed by the Commission and opted for a seven-year transition period to introduce a new calculation method. What do you propose?
Véronique Trillet-Lenoir: This seven-year transition period to electron microscopy technology is too long! A period of three years is sufficient to make this change and this is what I propose.
I also retain the Commission’s limit value of 0.01 fibres/cm3, because with more powerful asbestos fibre detection technology implemented in three years rather than seven, we will have equally powerful protection for workers.
In France, where a more advanced method is used - transmission electron microscopy - about 15 times more asbestos fibres are detected, including fine fibres, which are also carcinogenic. This means that the transmission method, which I recommend adopting in my report, is much more efficient than the optical microscopy used at present.
Detection performance is also increased by about three times with electron microscopy technology via the so-called ‘scanning’ method, although it does not detect as many fine fibres.
I also include a review clause after five years, with an assessment of whether this limit value of 0.01 should be lowered.
And I propose a series of protection measures, such as the certification of organisations that carry out asbestos removal, the disappearance of the encapsulation technique, which is risky, regular monitoring of those exposed, but also measures to ensure that a pre-construction diagnosis is carried out when there is a doubt about the level of asbestos present, or measures for firemen.
It is also proposed that the spectrum of occupational diseases recognised as asbestos-related be broadened to include ovarian and laryngeal cancers, in the form of an annexed list of diseases.
We don’t like as well the Commission’s proposal to differentiate between degrees of exposure by referring to short or moderate exposure to asbestos. It is better to avoid derogations. We therefore proposed to delete it.
There is also a strong emphasis on staff training, as one cannot have all the equipment required to detect asbestos fibres and not know how to use it.
Will you not disappoint those in the European Parliament who wanted to return to the limit value advocated in an own-initiative report in 2021, i.e. 0.001 fibres/cm3?
With this evaluation clause, we are not closing the door on this limit value of 0.001. The value proposed by the Commission is already ten times lower than the current value, so it already considerably strengthens the protection of workers, and with a better method of calculation, to be implemented in three years, we finally reach results quite similar to what the European Parliament was asking for.
The choice of this two-stage strategy, the passage to 0.01 immediately, without any transition, and then the transition in all Member States to a more efficient detection technique within three years, seems to me to be even more judicious than starting with a limit lowered to 0.001, but calculated with technologies that allow fine fibres to pass.
This is the situation in some Member States at present, which have exposure values lower than 0.01 fibres/cm3, but have less effective detection methodologies. I therefore believe that the position of my report is consistent with that of the Commission and also respects the position of the European Parliament to limit the risk.
Is it possible to conclude the dossier already under the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council?
One knows that the ‘asbestos’ dossier is one of their priorities and that they are motivated to negotiate as soon as possible. For my part, after sending my report this week, we will have a first discussion in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on 6 February, with a vote currently scheduled for April.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/4yh