Legislative and Work Programme for 2006

Speech by Liz Lynne on Tue 15th Nov 2005

Mr President, I welcome many aspects of the Commission programme but I am disappointed that there is not more reference to disabled people or elderly people. I would have like to have seen a specific disability directive that outlawed discrimination in access to goods and services and similarly one on age.

With regard to health and safety at work, I would also like to see an amendment to the 2000 biological agents directive, to protect health workers from contracting HIV and Hepatitis C from needle-stick injuries. There are over one million such injuries across the EU every year.

However, I welcome the Commission President's commitment to cutting down on unnecessary legislation, which of course is a burden on business. In that spirit, could he look again at the 2004 electromagnetic fields directive and the serious impact it could have on the use of state-of-the-art MRI scanners and see his way to bringing forward an amendment to this directive to make sure that MRI scanners will be protected in the future?