Brussels, 30/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has adopted the report of Danish Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt on the amended directive on workers' exposure to vibrations (co-decision, 3rd reading). The EP judged the compromise reached at the conciliation committee as being very satisfactory (see EUROPE 29 June 2001 page 16) because a number of original demands have been kept: whole body vibration and the amount of daily exposure that provokes action (as the EP requested) but the limited amount of daily exposure time is at the level outlined in the Council's common position; the stipulation that the contents of the Member States' reports should be supplied to the Commission every five years (as requested by the EP).
Liz Lynne (British Liberal Democrat) declared that she, "would have referred not to have a vibrations directive at EU level at all" but that it "could have been worse" given that the vast majority of the EP was in favour of the directive and she would not have been able to stop it completely. "I would have preferred to keep the exemption for agriculture and forestry…at least the agricultural machinery already in use will not have to conform now until 2014", she pointed out. The British MEP said that she was delighted that the amount of daily exposure to vibrations had been set at 1.15m/s² and not the 0.7m/s² sought by the Rapporteur or the 0.8m/s² originally requested by the EPP-DE.