Council adopts resolution on implementation of Community social legislation
A large body of Community legislation on social affairs already exists, in particular on health and safety at work. It is essential for each Member State to transpose this accurately into national legislation, within the required deadlines, and to take measures to ensure its effective application. It is essential that this be done if the existence of a European Social Area is to become a tangible reality for citizens. For this reason, the Council has adopted a Resolution (Council Resolution 95/c 168/01 of 27 March 1995) calling on the Commission to facilitate the transposition and application, by Member States, of all Community social legislation. In particular, it calls on the Commission to: - Enhance the content of prior impact studies, in the drafting of legislation, by making particular reference to information on existing national and Community provisions and the implications for employment and SMEs; - Propose sufficiently long time limits for the transposition of new Community legislation into national legislation; - Strengthen its consultation procedures, in particular with regard to management and labour organizations, and provide for directives to involve them in the transposition of Community social legislation, either through collective bargaining agreements or agreements concluded at national level; - Complete work on the harmonization of statistics on accidents at the workplace and improve data on occupational diseases, since the assessment of the scale of occupational hazards is a useful indicator of the results of steps taken to improve safety and health at work; - Improve information on the implementation of directives by regularly publishing tables listing the measures taken by Member States to transpose legislation. The Council also invites the Member States to keep the Commission properly informed of their efforts to implement Community legislation and to encourage management and labour organizations to play a full and active part in implementing such legislation at national level. Finally, the Council requests the Commission and the Member States to propose forms of cooperation which will encourage the gathering and distribution of information on progress made, and difficulties encountered, in implementing Community legislation in each Member State.