The European Commission has recently unveiled its new Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014 – 2020, which identifies key challenges and strategic objectives for health and safety at work and presents key actions and instruments to address these.
This new Framework aims to ensure that the EU continues to play a leading role in the promotion of high standards for working conditions both within Europe and internationally, in line with the Europe 2020 Strategy.
The Strategic Framework identifies three major health and safety at work challenges:
- to improve implementation of existing health and safety rules, in particular by enhancing the capacity of micro and small enterprises to put in place effective and efficient risk prevention strategies,
- to improve the prevention of work-related diseases by tackling new and emerging risks without neglecting existing risks, and
- to take account of the ageing of the EU's workforce.
It proposes to address these challenges with a range of actions under seven key strategic objectives, including:
- Further consolidating national health and safety strategies through, for example, policy coordination and mutual learning.
- Improving enforcement by Member States, for example by evaluating the performance of national labour inspectorates.
- Simplifying existing legislation where appropriate to eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens, while preserving a high level of protection for workers’ health and safety.
- Addressing the ageing of the European workforce and improving prevention of work-related diseases to tackle existing and new risks such as nanomaterials, green technology and biotechnologies.
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