KAN Report 5

	European standardization in the field of health and safety of workers at the workplace, A practical guide for German representatives in European Standardization, 07/1996 (412 KB)
Bookmarks in the pdf file link directly to the individual chapters. In the list of bookmarks, all sections available in English and French are highlighted in colour.

Summary

The Commission for Occupational Health,Safety and Standardization (KAN) has been established in order to focus national opinion towards OH&S matters and assert it with regard to European standardization at the earliest possible stage.

KAN has to identify the interfaces between directives (protection aims) and standards (technical specifications) and act upon the mandates given by the European Commission. Particularly, the position of the social partners, i.e. employees’ and employers’ representatives, has to be taken into account.Through the establishment of KAN, the possibility of the social partners to exert an influence on the preparation of harmonized standards is institutionalized, as intended bythe EC Machinery Directive. On the basis of the protection aims implied in the European directives, KAN has to check if the content of standards fulfils the OH&Srequirements from the German point of view. If deficiencies are found, KAN should take steps to influence European standardization in an appropriate way through the German Standards Institute (DIN).

Furthermore, KAN is supposed to implement and advance the “German Consensus Statement on standardizationin the field of directives based on Article 118a of the EC Treaty”. As soon as standardization mandates are given by the European Commission, KAN should try to contribute to the content of standards through the German Federal Government.