The body of European standards governing personal protective equipment (PPE) is already largely complete. 90% of the planned product standards are available, and many have already been revised and brought into line with the state of the art for the second or even third time. This is a satisfying conclusion after 15 years, and at the same time an encouragement to continue the diligent review of existing standards and, where appropriate, to amend and improve them. This can be seen clearly from the various examples in this issue's keynote articles.

In the spring of 1989, seven technical committees began drafting PPE standards in support of Directive 89/686/EEC. The progress made to date has broadly been positive: in October 2004, 298 standards had already been adopted (without amendments or revisions), 57 drafts had reached the voting stage, and 15 standards were still being drafted. Were no further standards to be launched, the work would in theory be completed by 2008!

Notified bodies are testing and certification bodies notified to the European Commission by the EU Member States for assessment of conformity according to one or more European directives. The notified bodies are therefore in the first instance providers of services to manufacturers, for assessment of the latter’s products for compliance with the requirements of the directives concerned.

Electrostatic materials in the particle filters of respiratory protective devices have the advantage of presenting low respiratory resistance and therefore being pleasant to wear. Their drawback however is that the filter efficiency may drop, both in use and, under certain conditions, during storage.

On 1 May 2004, the German Equipment and Product Safety Act (GPSG) entered into force. One function of this act is to transpose the EC Directive on General Product Safety. Through the new act, the AtAV, the Committee for Technical Work Equipment and Consumer Products, is encharged with the task of identifying, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour (BMWA), national technical specifications which give rise to a presumption of conformity under the GPSG at national level.

On 1 May 2004, a further ten countries joined the European Union. This brought the total number of Member States to 25. The time has now come to open EUROSHNET, the European network for occupational health and safety experts involved in standardization, testing, certification, and/or related research, to OH&S institutions in all EU and EFTA Member States.

In the Netherlands, as in many other European countries, the social partners and the government deliberate on OH&S issues in the context of legislation and standardization. The Netherlands’ Standardization Institute (NEN), based in Delft, is the body responsible for the co-ordination of OH&S-related standardization.

CEN/BT has set up a new working group (CEN/BT WG 168), ‘Occupational Health and Safety’ (OHS). BSI has been appointed as the secretariat, Germany’s Joachim Lambert as Convenor.

In the area of ergonomics, in particular, a problem is that information on the existence and content of standards can be obtained only by extensive research, and the target group (designers, members of standards committees) are therefore often not reached.

KAN has commissioned three studies the results of which are intended to add weight to OH&S issues within standardization activity.