1st March 2017

The European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs committee has today backed the draft report which seeks to amend a directive in order to better protect workers from risks of exposure to carcinogens or mutagens at work.

Commenting after the vote, Greens/EFA member of the Employment and Social Affairs committee Jean Lambert said:

“All workers deserve to be safe at work, and this has to include protection against exposure to harmful substances. We’re pleased that MEPs have significantly strengthened the Commission’s original proposal, including more ambitious limits on dangerous substances such as Chromium. We should always be aiming high when it comes to ensuring workers are protected from cancer risks.

“We are particularly pleased to have secured a Green amendment ensuring that reprotoxins are also covered by the regulations. While we would have liked to have seen exposure to diesel engines covered in this first revision to the directive, we will continue to push for this to happen as soon as possible.”

Background

This is the first of a series of proposals to limit exposure to various carcinogens and mutagens in employment. The EMPL committee will now also start working on the second batch presented by the Commission in January and a third batch is expected to be published in 2018. The Committee also voted to give the rapporteur and shadows a mandate to go to trialogue with the Council. However, if 10% of MEPs indicates their opposition before the next plenary in Strasbourg, the mandate will have to be voted on again in plenary.

ENDS