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European Community strategy for health and safety at work 2002-2006
Background
Within the EU, around 5,500 people die each year as a result of accidents at work and 4.8 million accidents result in more than 3 days off work. Expressed as a loss of production capacity, 500 million working days are lost each year as a result of accidents or health problems.
As a result, the European Commission has decided to re-define its approach to health and safety at work, and in March 2002, presented a Communication: Adapting to change in work and society: a new Community strategy on health and safety at work 2002-2006. The purpose of the strategy is to modernise EU health and safety policy to cover new types of workplace risk, such as psycho-social conditions and musculo-skeletal problems. The strategy also seeks to consolidate a culture of risk prevention at work.
Towards a new Community strategy on health and safety
The Commission has identified a series of key objectives that it intends to pursue in order to deliver its planned new approach to health and safety. The main ones are:
- A continuing reduction on occupational accidents and illnesses: setting quantified objectives at both Community and Member State level, particularly in sectors of activity with above-average incidence rates;
- To take account of gender differences, and to take account of the specific characteristics of women;
- To address social risks (stress, harassment, depression anxiety…);
- Prevention of occupational illness (e.g. musculo-skeletal problems);
- Specific measures targeting SMEs; and
- Analysis of new and emerging risks such as chemical, physical and biological agents.
The Commission aims to use all available policy instruments including legislation, social dialogue, benchmarking and promotion of best practices, corporate social responsibility and economic incentives. It also aims to develop active partnerships between different organisations and sectors.
Prevention
The Commission's policies on health and safety are based on preventive approaches with the aim to anticipate risks and control them. The basis of this work will be three elements:
- Education;
- Awareness; and
- Anticipation.
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has been identified as the organisation which should be the driving force in matters concerning awareness building and risk anticipation. The strategy identifies some key roles for the Agency. Therefore, the Agency will be expected to:
- set up a risk observatory, based on examples of good practice;
- organise exchanges of information by way of data collection with support of Eurostat; and
- refocus European week on health and safety on users and final beneficiaries;
Combining instruments and building partnerships
The legislative framework has been identified as an essential tool in terms of health and safety, providing the standards and principles for preventing risks and protecting workers. However, the Commission also recognises that there are other, less prescriptive, ways in which improvements can be made, such as voluntary agreements
The legal framework
The Commission will continue with the ongoing adaptation of existing Directives in line with changes in scientific knowledge, technical progress and the way we work. In doing so the Commission will produce reports on the practical application of various health and safety directives with a view to identifying problems and improving certain provisions to make them more comprehensible and consistent.
In addition, the existing legal framework will be rationalised and the Commission has acknowledged the need to make proposals to consolidate and rationalise existing legislation.
New risks will also be research and addressed, Psycho-social illnesses and musculo-skeletal problems have been identified as specific areas which need to be addressed.
Innovative approaches
The Commission recognises that other instruments can be effective in driving change. Therefore, it plans to encourage innovative approaches, especially in the new and emerging fields where the normative approach may not be appropriate.
Hence, benchmarking and the adoption of quantified national objectives will be encouraged so as to achieve:
- a reduction in the rate of fatal and non-fatal accidents;
- a reduction in the recognised occupational illnesses; and
- a reduction in the number of days lost due to such accidents and illnesses.
The Commission also recognises that for benchmarking and objective-setting to work, there must be a degree of comparability between national statistics. Therefore, the harmonisation of occupational accident and illness statistics will be encouraged. This will include not just recognised occupational accidents and statistics, but also causes and consequences.
Voluntary agreements concluded by social partners
The Commission has recognised the success of innovative measures such as the sectoral social dialogue that has taken place with certain works councils drawing up codes of good practice.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Increasingly, Corporate Social Responsibility is being adopted by companies and industry associations and frequently encompasses work on improving workplace health and safety. The Commission recognises this and will promote the integration of health and safety work with that on Corporate Social Responsibility.
Economic incentives
Insurance premiums can provide a significant economic incentive to promote risk prevention and improve health and safety performance. 
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