Posted By Merv Newman paulo, each european country implements European directives at it's own pace and in it's own time. There can be 5 to 10 years between one country implementing a certain directive and another. Often the directives are interpreted in decidedly different fashions. In the UK, Risk Analysis is applied before each operation. In France this is an annual event. Safe working plans for contractors came in to Germany in 2002. In France this happened in 1992 In Holland an employee who will not wear protective equipment cannot be disciplined. But the employer can be charged. "Working At Heights" regulations for France and Germany occupies 4 paragraphes. In the UK : 14 pages. Please don't get me on to the subject of Greece. (who tend to copy German legislation (why ?) and then ignore it)(see construction of olympic venues) I work in all of the EU countries and have to keep in mind the state of the legislation in each one of them. That is why I am SO highly paid. Merv (hey. Why not just ask for a quote ?)

Posted By Merv Newman Alison, thankyou. I didn't know about the "two dates". God, I wish I worked in the UK. So logical. Here they come out with a "law" which may then be "published" followed by a "directive" and/or a "circulaire" and a "regulation" and then "mise en application" And then they "modify" it. (without changing any of the previouse steps) Can be years between each step. If ever.

Posted By Paulo Dinis Merv Newman, you said : "paulo, each european country implements European directives at it's own pace and in it's own time. There can be 5 to 10 years between one country implementing a certain directive and another. " I´ve mentioned earlier that i´ve heard that argument´s many times over. You made me look into the English version of the Text : http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32003L0010&model=guichett Let me quote article 17 from the english version of the european text. "Article 17 Transposition 1. The Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive before 15 February 2006. They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof. When Member States adopt these measures, they shall contain a reference to this Directive or shall be accompanied by such reference on the occasion of their official publication. The methods of making such reference shall be laid down by the Member States. 2. In order to take account of particular conditions, Member States may, if necessary, have an additional period of five years from 15 February 2006, that is to say a total of eight years, to implement the provisions of Article 7 with regard to the personnel on board seagoing vessels. In order to allow for the drawing up of a code of conduct providing for practical guidelines for the implementation of the provisions of this Directive, Member States shall be entitled to make use of a maximum transitional period of two years from 15 February 2006, that is to say a total of five years from the entry into force of this Directive, to comply with this Directive, with regard to the music and entertainment sectors on the condition that during this period the levels of protection already achieved in individual Member States, with regard to the personnel in these sectors, are maintained. 3. The Member States shall communicate to the Commission the text of the provisions of national law which they adopt or have already adopted in the field covered by this Directive." So as you can read, besides exception legaly established, there is no "extra-time" or "postponing" possible. Each state-member is suposed to give a feeback on status as described on point number 3 of above article. There is just no European pro-active "monitoring", i whould love to see an European Work´s Inspector´s Force. No wonder you can find different "regulatory scenario´s within european union". I´m sure you have build experience on that issue. But, do you think i was misinformed by the Europe Direct Service Helpdesk ? I´ve read they mainly employs lawyers, could i´ve been misinformed ? You also wrote : "Often the directives are interpreted in decidedly different fashions." Yes, there is an huge free space available to "local´s adjustement´s" within limit´s and without "breaking the directive sense and objective". I can clearly see that comparing the Uk national text [ thank´s Alison ] with Portuguese project of law. I´m just working on one European state member for now. I´m not highly payed as you mentioned, but i can survive and still have time to check out for some intra-european benchmarking. Just a bad trainner´s habit i guess. I´m still convinced there is a huge European social Dumping based on H&S regulations, both in the form of non-transposition of european text, or in non-effective aplication of the text on ground level. ( again diferent work´s inspector´s agency´s from every state-member aren´t harmonized, etc etc ... ). You also mentioned : "Safe working plans for contractors came in to Germany in 2002. In France this happened in 1992" I´m not surprised. I´m sure each state-member has is own "safety culture" and "safety legislative culture". French´s got´s tones of it. However, and in an european harmonized context, since 1992 there is an european text on that field : "Council Directive 92/57/EEC of 24 June 1992 on the implementation of minimum safety and health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites (eighth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16 (1) of Directive 89/391/EEC)". I´m used to say european directives in H&S field tend to harmonized the H&S regulations for the european working citizens. If that doesn´t happen, the utility of the european text himself can be put in question. I hope this Portuguese collegue was able to express himself and been sucesful in argumenting my point of vue. P.S. I can also read the mention "The content of this message cannot be displayed at this time]" on last post. Is that due to forum moderation ?

Posted By Bill Fisher Paulo asked if the 'blanked' posting was due to Moderation. I can confirm that it was due to comments that added no value to the Thread. I would also ask all those posting to this Thread to be aware that in making comments on these Forums, which are viewed by many nationalities, to be aware of how the 'turn of phrase' may be interpreted by others but also for all readers to be aware that direct comments made are not always intended to be rude or off-hand.

Posted By Kate Graham Er, PUWER has been around since 1992. Kate

Posted By Kate Graham I don't remember, Merv, it was before my time. Kate

Posted By Tony Brunskill All, I think this is a really interesting point. Maybe it would be a good idea to publish the "Member State League Tables". Perhaps IOSH or "The Practitioner" might want to pick up on this thread. I also work across EU Borders and it can be a real pain sifting what applies where. I believe that the first field to get "level" is enforcement. Until we have a standard enforcement regime across the EU how can we really expect people to "toe the line". Once we have a consistent approach then we can genuinely look to removing barriers to trade. Not in my lifetime I fear!! Tony

Posted By Max Bancroft Good afternoon all. I remember in a previous job attending a talk by a civil servant speaking about EU Directives and their implimentationin the UK. The civil servants involved had a very clear instruction that they should be implimented so that the EU Commission would not ever need to start infraction proceedings against the UK Govt. The Commission does monitor how individual states transfer the Directives into national legislation and if they think the transformation from EU Directive to UK Statutory Instrument has not been done properly they do pursue the UK Govt. But what is much more interesting to us as safety professionals is the question: how effectively does each national govt via its enforcement/prosecuting agencies actually ensure that employers/self-employed/employees follow the legislaton? I think this could be a good article in SHP or even Policy & Practice - we all know that in the UK enforcement is done by the HSE, LAs (and now the Rail Regulator) and between them they have some 5,000 inspectors (I think). How do other countries do it - do they have similar splits in enforcement agencies and how many bodies do they have on the ground investigating - what is their armoury of enforcement/improvement notices etc. Who does the prosecuting if there is a breach of H&S law - how many prosecution are there is each country vis-a-vis number of deaths and serious injuries at work. Actually sounds like an MSc thesis rather than an article!

Posted By Heather Collins Ref PUWER. I've certainly being doing machinery risk assessments for PUWER in the early 1990s Merv! So yes it has been in force since then, although I'm sure there were transitional arrangements for pre-existing plant and equipment. In fact I seem to recall my original PUWER risk assessment forms having different boxes to tick depending on when the machinery was first put into service. PUWER 92 was the first incarnation in the UK giving force to the original Directive on minimum H&S requirements for safety of work equipment for use at work. It was revoked and re-enacted with amendments by PUWER 1998 which came into force on 5 Dec 1998 and included amended provisions on inspection of work eqpt and on requirements for mobile work equipment. There were transitional arrangements for mobile work equipment such that equipment put into use before Dec 1998 did not have to comply until Dec 2002. Not sure where you got the 2004 date from? On the whole the UK is good at enacting EC legislation on time (not asbestos or WEEE though!) and even better at enforcing it, which as I am sure those who have worked in Europe know very well is not exactly a level playing field!

Posted By Paulo Dinis Back to basic’s. The ABC of Social Dumping across Europe. As Max Bancroft said: "But what is much more interesting to us as safety professionals is the question: how effectively does each national govt via its enforcement/prosecuting agencies actually ensure that employers/self-employed/employees follow the legislation?" Well, let’s get back to basic shall we? I´ve take a look at English version of the Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work. I´m using the version of the text found here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu...CELEX:31989L0391:EN:HTML Article 2 points 1 cover´s the scope of the text. Text covers all sectors of activity, both public and private. Point 2 of same articles presents some exceptions. Article 14 of the European directive covers health surveillance. It is said the health of workers is monitored through the application of measures introduced in accordance with national laws and practices. The measures referred to in paragraph 1 shall be such that each worker, if he/she wishes so, may receive health surveillance at regular intervals. Health surveillance may be provided as part of a national health system. Practical case study for benchmarking purposes. Let’s see how one public employee, can be a public teacher or even an public prosecutor, is actually being "monitored" in Portugal in accordance to European text. With 10 years of work, the only time he was asked for a medical check up was right at the beginning of his work in public services. It’s mandatory to have a "medical certificate", that certify that the potential worker has the physical and psychological conditions to work in public services (Very similar to car driving license if you know what i mean). Previous medical check-up is not very "occupational context" oriented. After that, he never was submitted to what we can call a medical follow-up in an occupational context. He does use the national health system but for non-occupational situations ( or , and that’s really worst when that happens, there is some relation to illness and work conditions, but with no "medical sensitivity" the association to occupational background and risk exposure isn’t made by the doctor. That also explain a under report of professional illnesses that isn’t expressed in national statistics). As European text says, the health of workers is monitored through the application of measures introduced in accordance with national laws and practices. Current Portuguese national practices, in the form of law, says worker’s have to be submitted to an early medical exam if the worker is more than 50 years old and less than 18. If his/her age is between 18 and 50, the medical exam is done on a 2 years basis. Current national law also covers occasional exams ( asked by the employee, asked by the employer for a drug / alcoholics survey for example, due to a significant occupational risk exposure, for bio-surveillance purposes etc etc ). The law is from 1999, and is supposed to be the national transpositions to internal laws of the European text mentioned above to the public sector ( i´m not mistaken about the law date...you can see the gap). The national law also demands that the medical surveillance should be conducted by a " Medecin du Travail" - doctor specialized in working conditions - taught translation. I´ve got family working in public teaching; justice etc and the medical exam’s just aren’t done. I´ve contacted service Europe Direct (this time by email), and asked them to help me out. Using the example above - public employee working in public service for 10 years - i´ve described my concern to Europe Direct. The response of Europe Direct service was. Link given to the Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Direction for furthers inquiries: http://ec.europa.eu/empl...alth_safety/index_en.htm Link given to European text i´ve mentioned : http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/cha/c11113.htm Email given to further inquire: empl-labour-law@ec.europa.eu Current Portuguese government is considering to regulate the oldest profession of the world. Huge considerations and ethical questions arrises from that scenario. Portuguese Health and Safety Manager´s Ethical charts, says we must follow our pratices to always protect H&S conditions of worker´s. Once never tought that the worker´s could be "legal sex workers" but that might happen soon in Portugal. That possible sectored regulations made, me wonder how does one applied the European text to such sector of economy? Then after reading some text, that make me wonder, how effective is H&S European text across eu-state member. I´ve first take a look at the New Zeland regulations called: " Sex Industry - A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand " available here : http://www.osh.dol.govt....rder/catalogue/235.shtml Holland and Germany H&S regulations concerning legal sex industry aren’t available in English. All i got is a few email from some associations etc. For medical follow-up in an occupational H&S context, legal sex worker’s are tested every 2 months or in case of PPE breakage ( PPE being a condom ). I´m really not sure about medical follow-up in Holland and Germany, but i´ve received some feedbacks that say it’s mandatory for one yearly check. I´m really not sure about that, if some member can post a link i´ll apreciate ( link in english, french, portuguese or spanish. I personally can´t read the Holland´s and German´s text´s ). So back to the basic. After i´ve contacted the Europe Direct Service, i also got a direct link for standard form for complaints used to " failure by a member state to comply with comunity law" purposes. Document can be found here : http://ec.europa.eu/comm...laints/form/index_en.htm I´ve already contacted the Portuguese Ombudsman about this issue. I haven´t received any response yet, but i´m strongly convinced that when you compare the legal sex workers in germany or holland and compare them to thousands of public servant´s in Portugal, H&S regulations is not equally applied across Europe. I´m getting prepared to present a formal complaint, but before i do, iI would like to use this forum to receive additional feedback, to one simple question. How is article 14 applied in your part of Europe considering local national laws and practices? I hope the case study used will not be considered offensive to anyone and will not be subject to moderation as well. P.S. i´m only using the "medical occupational health surveilance as example. Many more aspects that are mandatory to the employers (employers being the State Member Portugal), aren’t also applied in ground level. From framework directive: "Employers are obliged: * to ensure the safety and health of workers in every aspect related to the work, primarily on the basis of the specified general principles of prevention, without involving the workers in any financial cost; * to evaluate the occupational risks, inter alia in the choice of work equipment and the fitting-out of workplaces, and to make provision for adequate protective and preventive services; * to keep a list of, and draw up reports on, occupational accidents; * to take the necessary measures for first aid, fire-fighting, evacuation of workers and action required in the event of serious and imminent danger; * to inform and consult workers and allow them to take part in discussions on all questions relating to safety and health at work; * to ensure that each worker receives adequate safety and health training throughout the period of employment." Just think about a public hospital involved in some fire and total evacuations situation. Fellows H&S practitioners, it’s really scary here.

Posted By Paulo Dinis Take a look at this parliamentary question : http://www.europarl.euro...04-2875+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN As far as Portugal, formal complaint will be presented shortly. What do you mean there is no answer ?