In a letter dated Tuesday, 14 May, several MEPs wrote to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights Nicolas Schmit to demand further action on dangerous substances in the workplace.
They also wrote to the future Hungarian, Polish, and Danish presidencies of the Council of the EU.
“There are still approximately 1400 carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic and other harmful chemical substances, which [remain] without limit values at the [EU level]. This poses a great threat to worker’s health and safety and also makes for uneven competition, as companies only have to comply with rules in some [EU countries] but not in others”, states a press release for the letter, whose signatories are Cindy Franssen (EPP, Belgian), Ilan de Basso (S&D, Swedish), Catherine Amalric (Renew Europe, French), Sara Matthieu (Greens/EFA, Belgian), and Nikolaj Villumsen (The Left, Danish).
So far, progress on introducing limit values has been very slow—part of the problem being the fact that only five substances maximum are sent to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for evaluation at any one time. Fourteen Member States had also written to the commissioner in March in order to accelerate the process of setting limit values (see EUROPE 13369/8).
[In the letter,] the elected representatives ask “the Commission to increase substantially the capacity of preparing scientific opinions for dangerous substances, including by allocating adequate resources for all relevant actors and bodies in the legislative process of setting occupational limit values”.
Link to the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/c73 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)