KANBrief A European perspective
Peer-Oliver Villwock, Head of the Occupational Safety and Health Directorate at the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, was elected the new Chair of KAN in April 2024.
KAN has now been in existence for 30 years. Are its tasks and objectives still the same as in 1994, the year of its inception?
With the founding of KAN, Germany followed the EU Machinery Directive’s mandate to the Member States to enable the Social Partners to participate appropriately in standardization activity. In the 30 years since then, KAN has gained recognition as a voice for German stakeholders in occupational safety and health. These stakeholders all benefit from the fact that coordinated through KAN, their positions carry more weight than they would individually. Through its Secretariat, KAN is now involved in standardization activity not only at national level, but also, when the need arises, directly at European and international level, and in other regulatory bodies. The stakeholders represented in KAN adopted a joint position in 2023 reaffirming this mandate.
It goes without saying that KAN must continually address new topics as they emerge. Topics relating to the digital transformation, such as artificial intelligence, and also climate change, currently rank highly on the standardization agenda. KAN must become involved at an early stage in these areas and make sure that the right course is set in the interests of occupational safety and health. At the same time, it must defend the regulatory remit of the state and the statutory accident insurance institutions.
Last year, the EU adopted its new Artificial Intelligence and Machinery Regulations. In what way are these Regulations particularly interesting from an occupational safety and health perspective?
The European Commission had originally intended to address the concept of “artificial intelligence” in the Machinery Regulation by reference to the AI Regulation. This reference was deleted during the negotiations. As a result, these two Regulations are no longer optimally intermeshed – the solution reached by the legislators at EU level isn’t as user-friendly as it could have been. Another new aspect in the Machinery Regulation is that involvement of a notified body is now imperative during conformity assessment of certain machines and associated products. This is the case even where manufacturers follow harmonized standards covering all the relevant requirements. This applies, for example, to safety components whose behaviour is fully or partly self-developing, i.e. based on AI. Another interesting point is that the procedure long established in Germany for determining whether a machine has undergone a “substantial modification” has now been enshrined at European level in the Machinery Regulation. Finally, I should mention the “common specifications” introduced with the Machinery Regulation, which have since also been introduced in a range of further EU legal acts.
It’s evident that supporting the requirements of the AI Regulation presents challenges for occupational safety and health. Since most standardization activity is conducted at international level, the limited resources available for standardization work must be concerted and used efficiently. This is where KAN is able to use its network and contribute to coordinating occupational safety and health interests.
What’s your view of the new instrument of “common specifications”, which was recently introduced in several EU regulations?
The European Commission can use common specifications to define technical requirements which, like harmonized standards, give rise to a presumption of conformity when they are applied. However, it’s important to note that this instrument represents a makeshift solution. Certain conditions therefore have to be met before the European Commission is permitted to use it. Common specifications have now been included in the new Machinery and Artificial Intelligence Regulations, and in the draft Construction Products Regulation. Used on a case by case basis, common specifications may be useful. It still isn’t clear, though, how they should be drawn up in practice, and how the stakeholders are to be involved in their creation. It would therefore be better if this makeshift solution weren’t needed in the first place. Improved cooperation between the standards organizations on the one hand and the Member States and the European Commission on the other would be beneficial in this respect.
Peer-Oliver Villwock