Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-22-Speech-2-266"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20021022.10.2-266"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, as is apparent from what the Commissioner said this evening, we rarely disagree with the Commission on the direction we should all take when we talk about the working environment. We are all of us concerned about the fact that far too many people receive lasting physical injuries in the course of their work. What perhaps is worse is that, in a long list of areas, there has in actual fact been no improvement in the working environment in the EU. It is against that background, Commissioner, that we had hoped that the Commission might have been more ambitious in its working environment strategy and, in any case, when it came to following this up. I had hoped that we might today have been able to obtain a promise of more than just timetables for the various activities.
As the rapporteurs have emphasised, the situation in the area of the working environment is such that, since 1992, there have been swingeing cutbacks in the resources available to the Commission in this field. I am aware that there are different ways of doing the calculations, but the fact is that the money is not enough. We are concerned here with cutbacks at a time when problems in the working environment have become more complicated and extensive and when, as a matter of fact, we face new working environment problems. We must work with different tools, we must look into prevention and we must help the national authorities. There are many very complicated tasks that have to be carried out, and the challenges we face in terms of directives cannot adequately be described in a three-minute speech. As Mrs Evans has also pointed out, we know that working environment problems may be in danger of becoming problems for women. We know that small and medium-sized enterprises require special attention. There is an urgent need for a directive on the whole range of muscle and bone problems. Stress and harassment require concerted action, and we are also aware of the possible need for a general recognition of occupational illnesses in a minimum directive.
In the light of all the initiatives we all consider necessary, what is probably our greatest disappointment is that the Commission does not intend to follow up this strategy with a proper action plan. When the Commission says that it would like to be involved in timetabling, our answer must be that timetables should be made still more binding, and we must propose that a proper action plan in actual fact be prepared. If the Commission agrees that we must have timetables and that we must make them more binding, it will hopefully – at the end of this debate in which there will presumably be more people demanding an action plan – explain to us why it does not go the whole hog, pursue this strategy further and draw up a proper action plan. We know, of course, that this would be more binding upon the European Parliament, the Commission and, especially, the Member States. I hope that we can make progress. We need an action plan covering the working environment."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples