Birth of a new EU agency

© Belga Image SPECIAL FEATURE Stress: EU-OSHA’s foresight activity aims to understand the new and emerging risks that changes such as digitalisation may mean for occupational safety and health. An information agency Located in Bilbao, Spain, EU-OSHA was established in 1994. Its main mission is to develop, gather and provide reliable and relevant information, analysis and tools to advance knowledge, raise awareness and exchange occupational safety and health (OSH) information and good practice. The agency collects and disseminates information on OSH at EU and national level. It also anticipates change and new and emerging risks, and develops tools for good OSH management. In 2018, it employed 64 staff and had an annual budget of €15.4 million. Historically, occupational safety and health (OSH) was at the heart of the European project right from the start, in 1951, with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. As far as the EU as we know it today is concerned, a major milestone was the adoption of the OSH Framework Directive in 1989. It laid down common principles, put risk assessment at the centre of OSH management and gave rise to 24 specific directives. In the early 1990s, there were over 4 million workplace accidents every year in Europe, of which 8 000 were fatal. In response to these shocking figures, the European Commission declared 1992 the European Year of Safety and Health at Work. This set the scene for the founding of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) in 1994. Campaigns Raising awareness of the risks workers face, and how to prevent them, is central to EU-OSHA’s mission. Over the past 25 years, the Agency and its partners have reached out to target audiences through the Healthy Workplaces Campaigns, the European Week for Safety and Health at Work and many other awareness- raising activities. In 2008, EU-OSHA began running 2-year Healthy Workplaces campaigns, its flagship awareness-raising activity and the largest campaigns of their kind in the world. The aim here is to raise awareness of an important OSH-related issue and providing resources in 25 languages to manage workplace risks such as stress and psychosocial risks and EU-OSHA – Helping make workplaces safer, healthier and more productive The EU’s information agency for occupational safety and health (EU-OSHA) celebrated its 25th anniversary in June 2019 1 8 / SOC I A L AG E NDA / NOV E MB E R 2 0 1 9