Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-088"
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"en.20000920.7.3-088"2
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"I am very grateful to be able to follow my colleague, Philip Bushill-Matthews, because I share many of the concerns he has expressed. I think that this proposal reflects no credit on the European Union or on this House. I think if the European Union – and indeed if the European Parliament – wishes to be taken seriously by the people of Europe then this is exactly the sort of legislation which it should cease to enact because we all know that health and safety and workers’ safety is a priority for all Member States, and so it should be.
But there is no justification for a Europe-wide standard on this issue. There can be no reason why Member States, acting in a uniform way, would necessarily be able to tackle this problem more effectively than individual Member States and, above all, there can be no reason for taking such a close interest in ordinary aspects of people’s working lives.
It can make no sense to legislate on how Europeans are permitted to climb ladders. This should not be the priority for this House. It is too great a level of detail for this House to involve itself in and it will merely lead to the ridiculing of the European Union because this is just the sort of interference which is deeply unpopular with many citizens across the European Union.
Instead of engaging in this sort of interference, we should be addressing those issues where it is constructive for Member States to work together and develop some common standards. A common and uniform and centralised standard on how you climb a ladder is not necessary and it is an undesirable interference with the way people run their work environment. We can trust the people of Europe to decide for themselves how they climb ladders.
I believe that it is not necessary to conduct a risk assessment every time it is proposed to use a ladder. As anyone working in the home can tell you, ladders are used very commonly and very frequently and, yes, there are accidents but I do not believe this kind of directive will ever eliminate those accidents. All it will do is add yet another layer of European bureaucracy and red tape to be dealt with by a business community already suffocated by the weight of red tape.
As my colleague has said, it is time for a change. It is time for this Parliament to start addressing the issues which are of concern to the citizens of Europe and to stop addressing itself to detailed questions where it can be of no assistance in actually securing worker protection. In fact, all it is doing is bringing itself and the European Union into disrepute and burdening European businesses with a layer of cost and bureaucracy that they can ill afford."@en1
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