The EU's so-called "New Approach" Directives, which harmonise safety rules for a range of industrial goods, play up the role of private players on the market: manufacturers, standards bodies, certification bodies. Ian Fraser's report focusses on the role of that other crucial, but often-overlooked, player - government. He looks in detail at French public surveillance of the market for one of the products covered by European Directives - personal protective equipment (PPE) - and compares the French system with the position in other EU countries.
Public surveillance is vital to ensure that all players - manufacturers, standards bodies, notified bodies - shoulder their responsibilities properly. But its overarching aim is to protect the end-users of products - in this case, workers who actually use personal protective equipment. What this equipment mainly has to do is to meet the essential safety requirements set by the directives and put into practice by European technical standards. Where PPE are concerned, this may literally be a matter of life and death, because they are all that stands between the user and injury.
To be really meaningful, standards must be informed by users' own shopfloor experience. But workers' representatives - and consumer organisations - have no real hand in drafting and adopting standards, even though the Directives expressly call for them to be involved. It is up to governments to take active steps to see that users have a say and their experiences taken into account.
It is now ten years since the Machinery and PPE Directives were passed, and an effective European policy to ensure their consistent application is still wanting. The fact is that in many countries, inspection bodies are underfunded and understaffed, penalties, if any, are inadequate and there is no joined up system of surveillance. The outcome of the debate on this is a key issue in the credibility of the Community system. Ian Fraser's report makes a major contribution to that debate.

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