Protection of workers from exposure to carcinogens or mutagens: second proposal (CMD 2)

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's impact assessment (IA) accompanying the above proposal, adopted on 10 January 2017 and referred to Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). The proposal intends to amend the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive 2004/37/EC2 (CMD) by establishing binding occupational exposure limit values3 (BOELVs) for the inhalation route of exposure and/or binding skin notations for seven carcinogenic chemical agents. The current proposal ('CMD 2') follows and complements a previous one,5 covering thirteen carcinogenic chemical agents, while work has already started on a third proposal concerning five additional carcinogenic chemical agents with a view to its presentation in early 2018. All together, the three proposals concern 25 priority chemical agents that have been selected through a consultative approach involving stakeholders at Member State and social partner levels (IA, p. 15).