Some ten years after the adoption of the EU Machinery Directive, the European Commission has now presented the Parliament and the Council of Ministers with a proposal for its revision.

Early this year, the European Commission presented a proposal for revision of the EC Machinery Directive. The revised Directive should, subject to the approval of the Parliament and Council of Ministers, be applied from 2006 onwards.

The objective of guidelines is to assure clarity in the face of the abundance of standards. With this in mind, two guidance documents have been drawn up for the area of ergonomics, each of which is intended for a particular target group.

The WTO-TBT agreement on the elimination of technical barriers to trade is a major issue in the current debate of standardization policy by the Internal Market Council and the European Commission. The agreement will assign even greater importance to international standards than was previously the case.

Over 20 Single Market Directives make reference to the provision of harmonized European Standards for their support. The standards are drafted by private standards organizations; their use remains voluntary. At the same time, there is considerable public interest in the standards, as they result in a presumption of conformity with the respective directive, and thus present a de-facto yardstick for the technical safety level. This distribution of activity between legislator and standardization has often been hailed as a success story. The “democratic legitimacy” of standardization has however attracted occasional criticism. How can the OH&S groups, and in particular the government bodies, ensure that their interests are protected?

Through their activities in standardization, testing and certification, and supporting research activity, the European occupational health and safety institutions make a considerable contribution to the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases.