The following details have been supplied by the TUC:
Government claims that the European Union has fuelled an increase in legislation have been proven to be a myth, the TUC has said.
The union body was commenting after an an academic study concluded that far from producing too much legislation, the EU is only producing a small minority of the new laws coming into effect in Britain.
It showed the number of new directives has halved in the past five years and this trend seems set to continue, as the European Commission’s Work Programme for 2015 has abandoned 80 proposals and introduced just 23.
TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson, writing in the Stronger Unions blog, noted: “For many of us, the fact that the EU is regulating less is not a matter for celebration, but anger. We have recently seen proposals for new regulations on carcinogens and musculoskeletal disorders ditched by the Commission after pressure from the UK and, in the current climate, many ordinary workers would welcome new laws on employment protection, fairness at work or decent hours, wherever they come from.” He added that other studies of the impact of EU laws only examined effects on business. “The Commission has just conducted a study on the effect of EU health and safety legislation, but the main question is what have been the costs and benefits to business. In fact EU regulations in areas like health and safety, consumer rights and employment, have been of huge benefit to hundreds of millions of people throughout Europe, so why is the Commission not evaluating the benefits to its workers and citizens that its regulation brings, rather than just perpetuating the myth that regulation is about burdens and ‘red tape’?”
