“Get real!” Euro-MP tells Health and Safety Committee
September 11, 2002 12:00 AM
Liz Lynne, MEP for the West Midlands and Health & Safety Spokesperson for the European Liberal Democrat group, has reacted in outrage at the European Parliament’s Employment Committee for voting down proposals to require the EU Commission to base workplace health and safety directives on proper impact assessments and scientific evidence.
Liz had tabled a number of amendments to the Parliament’s Draft Report on the Commission’s latest Health and Safety Communication, calling for proper impact assessments to be drafted in advance of new legislation, to draw on scientific evidence and to evaluate how existing legislation has been implemented before drafting new legislation in the same area. A coalition of Socialists, Greens and some members of the group the UK Conservatives belong to, the European People’s Party, voted down these amendments.
Commenting on the Committee’s decision, Liz Lynne said “The European Parliament is a serious legislative assembly, not a sixth form debating society. Our work is not to vote on good intentions, but to decide on legislation that will need to prove practical in the real world. What the Employment Committee decided today was that it should continue to vote blindly on proposals without considering how they will really work across the EU.
“When the Parliament behaves like this, it is no wonder people across Europe get frustrated with it. We have already this year encountered severe problems with the new Noise Directive, which failed to take into account previous EU legislation, and similarly the Vibrations Directive, which failed to take into account the latest scientific evidence. For how long can the Parliament keep its head in the sand?”
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