Brussels, 16/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - By adopting the report of Portuguese Socialist, Elisa Maria Damião, on protecting workers against the risks of asbestos at work (see EUROPE 28 March page 17), Parliament is effectively stressing that asbestos is a danger and that Member States establish national registers of public buildings, industrial and commercial sites containing asbestos. It is also calling for national registers to be compiled on companies that are adequately equipped to carry out demolition and asbestos elimination work. Parliament also considers that when asbestos is the cause of workers of former workers becoming sick, the employer is obliged to prove that exposure to asbestos at work was not the cause of the illness. Parliament also highlights the need to encourage common practices in identification that do not threaten the principle of subsidarity.
The Employment and Social Affairs Committee believes that it is time that the European Commission took up the case of workers subject to such risks, as the rapporteur asserts. Ms Damião, however, wants to go further than the Commission proposals and is calling on companies that put their workers at risk to be sanctioned. The rapporteur for the Environment Committee, Erik Meijer (Left Unity, the Netherlands) pulls no punches: asbestos kills and the problem is even more serious in candidate countries where it is not only found in industry but in housing (in the countryside for example, where the walls and roofs of some houses are made from asbestos). Spanish EPP-DE MEP, Manuel Perez-Alvarez fully recognises the need for information on the subject, to raise awareness and protect workers but is not in favour of going beyond the European Commission proposal. He believes another kind of legal base is required. British Liberal, Elisabeth Lynne, is one of those who wants to strengthen the document. Danes, Helle Thorning-Schmidet (Social Democrat) and Ulla Sandbaek (Europe of Democracies and Differences) are worried by the questions involving exports: at the Social Affairs Meeting on 27 March, Germany, Finland and Denmark found themselves in a minority on this issue, as pointed out Ms Sandbaek. Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou was unable to assure them on this point, who told them that the issue would certainly be raised at the Council and asked whether a total ban was needed, which she regarded as a solution that would be very difficult to apply given that there are products that contain degrees of asbestos in them and it would be very difficult to make clear distinctions between them. Some Parliamentarians, such as Theodorus Bowman, raised the question of asbestos in ciment, a danger of which Ms Diamantopoulou was aware.