The EU Agency for Safety and Health at Work has launched a joint campaign with the European Commission and the Bulgarian EU Presidency aimed at raising awareness of dangerous substances at work while sounding the alarm about the surging costs related to cancer

The EU Agency for Safety and Health at Work has launched a joint campaign with the European Commission and the Bulgarian EU Presidency aimed at raising awareness of dangerous substances at work while sounding the alarm about the surging costs related to cancer.

“We have a great deal of European legislation aimed at protecting workers from dangerous substances, but there is a gap when tackling exposure limits on carcinogen,” Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility told EURACTIV.COM.

The Commissioner spoke to EURACTIV at the launch of an event of the “Healthy Workplaces Manage Dangerous Substances” 2018-2019 campaign by the European Agency for Safety and Health at work (EU-OSHA) on in Brussels on 24 April.

EU leaps forward in attempt to ban carcinogens at work

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Implementation

The EU-wide, two-year campaign will host events and activities aimed at drawing attention to the issue and promoting the best ways of tackling the risks that dangerous substances pose to workers, in particular, carcinogens.

Around 1.6 million people of working age are diagnosed with cancer in Europe every year, the latest figures from the EU-OSHA read. The number of people estimated to develop cancer in the EU as a result of occupational exposure to carcinogens is more than 120,000 people a year, resulting in almost 80,000 deaths per year.

While underlining that the use of dangerous substances at work around Europe “is not decreasing”, EU-OSHA cited estimates from the International Labour Organisation and the EU that show carcinogens cause the majority of fatal occupational diseases in the EU.

In Britain, it is estimated that about 8,000 people die every year from occupational cancer caused by past exposure to carcinogens at work, it said.

The agency also cited a French study which found that young workers and maintenance workers in particular, are often more exposed, sometimes to several carcinogens at the same time.

“Exposure to carcinogens in the workplace causes the majority of fatal occupational diseases in the EU, yet many of these deaths could be prevented if the existing regulations were really being implemented,” Commissioner Thyssen continued.

“We have 24 directives and regulations that deal with occupational safety and health. At the end of the day, it is what is being done on the ground that counts. This is why we need campaigns like this one to raise awareness and show what is possible to be done and implemented in order to reduce exposure to carcinogens and other dangerous substances”.

The Commissioner underlined that member states are responsible for organising inspections on the ground while the European Commission makes the EU regulations that are implemented on the ground.

“But we have to do it in a positive way,” she added. “The European Commission is not there to tell member states ‘you are wrong and we are going to give you a fine’. Instead, the inspection can help and support entrepreneurs to do better in reducing the exposure to dangerous substances at work”.