European Community Directives development

The Health and Safety Commission has repeatedly drawn attention to the importance of the European Community in developing health and safety initiatives. I therefore particularly welcome the new section on the EC and hope it will help raise the awareness of all who work or are involved in the health and safety field to the significant impact European matters and EC Directives have. It is important that we all use our influence wherever possible to help ensure that our views are fully understood and taken account of in decisions made by the EC. 

The pressure equipment directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the European Council in May 1997. It harmonises the national laws of the 15 Member States of the European Union relating to equipment subject to the pressure risk. That directive is one of the series of technical harmonisation directives such as for machinery, medical devices, simple pressure vessels, gas appliances and so on, which were foreseen by the Communities programme for the elimination of technical barriers to trade. It therefore aims to ensure the free placing on the market and putting into service of the equipment concerned within the European Union and the European Economic Area. At the same time it permits a flexible regulatory environment, allowing European industry to develop new techniques increasing thereby its international competitiveness. 

The earlier policy on technical harmonisation within the then European Community was to adopt directives for individual products and which set out the technical requirements in great detail. This resulted not only in a great number of directives needing to be developed but the setting out of the technical requirements in such detail proved to be a hindrance to technical progress. 

The Commission of the European Communities has asked /5/ CEN TC 127 to produce the necessary standards concerning fire safety in support of the "Construction Products Directive" CEN/TC127 met first in London on 18-20 May 1988 and took some resolutions which may favour a rapid development of the interim solution mentioned in chapter 3. 

OSHA relied on several established lists-including the New Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act (TCPA), the Delaware Extremely Hazardous Substances Risk Management Act, the European Communities Seveso Directive (82/501/EEC), and NFPA Hazardous Chemicals Data (NFPA 49)-to develop its list of highly hazardous chemicals. OSHA chose to list the chemicals classified as reactive category 3 or 4 in NFPA 49 (1975 edition). 

This workshop comprises part of the four-year (1985-1988) non-nuclear energy R D programme for the development of renewable energy sources which is being implemented by the Commission of the European Communities (Directorate-General Science, Research and Development—DG XII). The aim of the workshop was to present work by the contracting laboratories in addition to work by numerous other research laboratories in 11 European countries. Extensive discussions were also held on the present status of this basic, directed research in photochemistry, photoelectrochemistry and photobiology and where the future emphasis may usefully lie. 

The regulatory framework governing biological medicinal products is based on the European Community Treaty, which aims at the free movement of goods within the European Union. Although the legal base is built on the principle of free trade of medicinal products within the European Union, the essential aim of any rules governing the production, distribution, and use of medicinal products must be firmly based on protection of public health. Recital 3 of Directive 2001/83/EC notes that the objective of public health protection must be attained by means that do not hinder the development of the pharmaceutical industry or trade in medicinal products within the European Union. 

It may not be entirely accidental that Stalinon and thalidomide were contemporary drugs and that both had neurotoxic potential. The story of thalidomide is too well known to bear much repetition here, but it is worth summarising it in the context of the development of drug regulation in Europe. The events that followed its clinical use were to provide the stimulus that laid the ground rules on which the Medicines Act in the UK and the legislation in most other modem European states, including the European Community s Directive 65/65/EEC, are based. 

The word is also sometimes used as a collective term for substances intentionally developed for use against harmful organisms. In a directive from the European Community (EU Biocidal Products Directive 98/8/EC), we find the following definition ... 

In the European Community, according to the Directive 92/32/EEC (7-th addition to the Directive 67/548/EEC), the definition toxic for reproduction)) was introduced which takes into account harmful influence on sexual function and fertility of adult men and women, and also influence on development of posterity. 

Several countries have been given restrictions on the use of compounds because of potential toxic effects in humans. In the European Community, the use of tris(2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate (EC Directive 76/769/EEC) and tris(l-aziridinyl)phosphine oxide (EC Directive 83/264/EEC) in textiles has been banned. In 1977, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use of tris(2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate in children s clothing (ICPS, 1995). The European Community has also banned the use of PBBs in textiles (EC Directive 83/264/EEC). Several countries have either taken or proposed regulatory actions on PBBs. In addition, controls on the emissions of dioxins and furans from municipal solid waste incinerators have been implemented in the United Kingdom under the Environmental Protection Act (1990). Germany has developed rules for the maximum content of selected 2,3,7, and 8 substituted polychlorinated dibenzo-pura-dioxins and dibenzofurans in products. Recently, the European Commission has issued a proposal to ban the production and use of PentaBDE. In U.S. A., on the other hand, there are currently no regulations on PBDE production or use. PBBs have not been used widely in Europe and also in U.S.A. the production of the main mixture, hexabromobiphenyl (Firemaster BP-6), ceased in 1974, after the Michigan disaster. ... 

MARIA TERESA GIARDI is a coordinator of multi-disciplinary studies on the realization of biosensors for the European Community and the European Space Agency. She is research leader of a group of young post docs with a special role in direct participation in several of the results presented in this book. She has a background in organic chemistry her scientific work includes studies on biochemical mechanisms of photosynthesis, stress biochemistry and photosynthetic biosensors. She supports a sustainable technological development. 

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