Luxembourg, 07/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - Austrian legislation will no longer prevent women from applying for activities involving diving in a high pressure atmosphere. The European Court of Justice has declared the provisions of an Austrian decree of 1973 (whereby only men aged 21 and over may be employed for this kind of work) as incompatible with European law and hence inapplicable. The range of diving work is wide and includes, for instance, activity in the fields of biology, archaeology, tourism and police work.
The regulation runs counter to the provisions of the European directive on gender equality because it rules out any individual assessment of a candidate, European judges say. Women may not be excluded from a certain type of employment solely because they are on average smaller and less strong than average men, while men with similar physical features are accepted for that employment, the judges say, thus following through the European Commission's argument. The Austrian government considers women should be excluded from certain activities because of their lower respiratory capacity and their lower red blood cell count. The judge who dealt with this case is the German Judge at Court, Ninon Colneric, a specialist in labour law.