Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Improving quality and productivity at work: Community strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work

This communication proposes a strategy for promoting health and safety at work in the European Union from 2007 to 2012. Health and safety at work is now one of the most important and most highly developed aspects of EU policy on employment and social affairs. Thanks to the adoption and application in recent decades of a large body of Community laws, it has been possible to improve working conditions in the EU Member States and make considerable progress in reducing the incidence of work-related accidents and illnesses.

With a view to relaunching the policy on health and safety at work, the European Commission defined a new Community strategy in 2002 for the period 2002-2006. This was based on an overall approach to wellbeing at work which took account of changes in the workplace and the emergence of new risks, especially those of a psychosocial nature.

The report on the evaluation of the Community strategy on health and safety at work 2002-2006 concludes by saying that this strategy has relaunched prevention policies at national level, presents coherent and convincing arguments in favour of a partnership to achieve common objectives and obliges interested parties in the prevention field to give strategic consideration to how these objectives might be attained; it has raised public awareness of the importance of health and safety at work by presenting them as integral parts of quality management and as determining features of economic performance and competitiveness.

The Community strategy 2002-2006 has seen a significant fall in the rate of accidents at work. The new strategy for 2007-2012 proposes to step up our ambition and to aim for a 25% reduction in the total incidence rate of accidents at work by 2012 in EU-27 by improving health and safety protection for workers and as one major contribution to the success of the Growth and Jobs Strategy.

European Commission: SEC(2007)215: Impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SEC:2007:215:FIN

European Commission: SEC(2007)216: Executive summary of the impact assessment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SEC:2007:216:FIN

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