Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-15-Speech-2-163"
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"en.20051115.25.2-163"2
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".
Mr President, REACH, one of the most complex legislative procedures – and not just because it runs to 1 200 pages – kept ten of this House’s committees occupied, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, whose opinion I have drafted, was one of them.
The chemical industry in the EU employs 1.7 million people, while some 3 million more are associated with it as suppliers. In order to get some idea of REACH’s effects on day-to-day working life, I visited 50 companies – not just in Germany – working in the fields of paints and coatings, ceramics, textiles, electrical goods, automobiles and chemicals. The unanimous view expressed by both managers and shopfloor workers was that there was no alternative to protecting health and the environment, and that a clear distinction had to be drawn between hazardous and non-hazardous substances, not least for the employees’ sake.
It has to be said, though, that the costs stated in the Commission proposal are so high, and bureaucracy involved so extensive, that there is the threat of competition with non-EU businesses being distorted, and the possibility of businesses relocating is not to be excluded.
It was our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs that conducted the first of this House’s Hearing’s on REACH; this it did in October 2004, with 200 experts on labour law and health protection, not to mention representatives of the social partners, present. We were also – on 12 July 2005 – the first committee to vote on it, thereby, no doubt, giving important indications as to the future progress of deliberations in the European Parliament.
We are in favour of pre-registration and prioritisation as standard. If there is a batch of core data relating to the actual risk rather than to the quantity of the substance in question, as well as categories for exposure and use, registration with the Chemicals Agency can be accomplished professionally and at no less speed, avoiding not only vast amounts of dead data but also needless red tape, to the benefit of small and medium-sized businesses in particular. Most of us voted in favour of derogations for substances used in research and development and for the new Agency’s powers to be extended.
A modified REACH will make superfluous two dozen European labour law regulations in the field of health and safety at work alone. Priority has to be given to the drafting of safety data sheets and their precise use in places of work, thereby obviating accidents resulting from the improper handling of substances."@en1
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