Health and safety

European institutions provide a mid-term review of the European strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work

July 2011

Adopted at the beginning of 2007, the European strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work provides a political framework for the coordination of national policies regarding occupational health and safety. Thus, it aims at ensuring safer and healthier conditions for all workers in the European Union, in particular through the objective of achieving a 25% reduction of occupational accidents and diseases by 2012.

A mid-term review of the strategy has been recently published by the European Commission, in order to examine the achievements and suggest new orientations in view of recent economic and social changes. Among the conclusions of this report, we can stress four main ideas:
- In the context of the EU 2020 Strategy, reducing the incidence of work-related accidents and diseases can be a way to reach the objectives of higher productivity and longer availability of workers in the labour market 
-Social partners at EU level play a crucial role in improving health and safety standards in the European Union (for example, the autonomous agreement on harassment and violence at work)
- There is a need to develop a structured and commonly accepted monitoring tool at EU level for efficient evaluation of the implementation of future strategies in Member States
- Existing legislation could still be simplified and therefore on-going legislative proposals must be encouraged (for instance, the new directive proposal on ergonomics and work-related musculoskeletal disorders)

These conclusions have been examined by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on 13 July, which especially recognized the importance of prevention and training and the need to properly address stress and mental condition of workers in the future European strategy.

The mid-term review is the first step in the process of preparing the new strategy for the period post-2012. Indeed, the EU is still facing numerous challenges on health and safety at work, e.g. the emergence of new risk factors as ageing population or technological innovation, which must be addressed by new policy initiatives.

Read the Commission staff working paper

The European Agency for safety and health at work has published its annual report 2010

June 2011

This report provides information on the major Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) issues and trends in 2010. It describes projects led by OSHA during the year, as for example "OSH in figures" project which aims to publish an evidence base that policymakers can use for the prevention of workplace accidents and disease. The European Agency also identified emerging risks related to green jobs and the use of new technologies, as well as new psychosocial risks related to stress, violence and harassment at work.

The findings, projects and conclusions included in this report constitute a useful tool for decision-makers to help them take good decisions. The picture of the current situation in Europe's workplaces provided by the Agency enables the decision-makers to identify different scenarios for action and thus adapt the policy in a way that it fits with workers interests and needs. Despite the good results obtained in the area of safety and health at work in recent years, big challenges still need to be addressed. Introducing the annual report, the Agency Director reminded that "for the whole of the EU, we can estimate the production loss from people being excluded from work on health and disability grounds at 3,000 billion Euros every year" (3,000 billion Euros is equal to the GDP of Germany). Psychosocial risks related to work are also increasing: according to a survey driven by OSHA, 79% of European managers are concerned by work-related stress while less than a third of companies have set procedures to deal with this issue. Finally, this report shows that worker's involvement is a key factor in health and safety management. Healthy and safety workplaces depend widely on the employee participation in the awareness-raising activities and the implementation process of efficient risk management policies within their undertakings.

Read the report on the OSHA's website