Economic Incentives Workshop - Brussels Presidency Event

Dietmar Elsler, the EU-OSHA Project Manager of the Economic Incentives Expert Group, welcomed the participants and gave an overview of the goals of the meeting and the content of the programme.

In the previous Expert Group meeting, on 26–27 May 2010 in Rome, it was decided to use the complex findings of the European economic incentives project to draw up a practical and user-friendly guide to help incentive providers in the EU create or optimise their own economic incentive schemes. The main aim of this Brussels workshop was to present and discuss the first drafts of the six chapters of the guide. The respective chapters were presented by the following experts:

• Chapter 1 - Social and financial framework conditions - Oguz Karadeniz, Pamukale University, Turkey
• Chapter 2 - Strategy - Judith Hoffmann, Institute for Technology and Work, Germany
• Chapter 3 - Needs analysis - Miguel Cuervo, CLYMA, Spain
• Chapter 4 - Appropriate measures - Dietmar Elsler, EU-OSHA, Spain
• Chapter 5 - Examples - Liliana Frusteri, INAIL, Italy
• Chapter 6 - Promotion - Athos Charalambous, Laiki Insurance, Cyprus

In addition to these presentations, there were invited speeches by Jukka Takala (Director EU-OSHA, Bilbao), Joseph LaDou (University of California School of Medicine) and Andreas Heyer (Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany). The main aim of these presentations was to exchange information on economic incentives related to OSH.Jukka Takala gave an introduction to some facts and figures, and economic aspects related to OSH, and also provided some insights into the dynamics at EU policy level.Joseph LaDou, an expert on occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California, gave a presentation on the current state of the workers’ compensation system in the United States, the link with European systems, and his views on the work by the Expert Group.Andreas Heyer from the Bertelsmann Foundation presented a German project on cooperative incentive networks. As there are many different OSH incentive providers in Germany, the project looked at the possibility of a harmonised and integrated approach with regard to incentives at the workplace.

The first draft of the six chapters of the guide on economic incentives was presented and discussed in this Workshop. The plan is to have another, sixth, meeting in Lucerne (Switzerland), on 11–13 May 2011, where the guide will be finalised. In the meantime, the experts will expand on the material. All experts are welcome to join this initiative and contribute to the respective chapters.All presentations, including the invited speeches by Jukka Takala, Joseph LaDou and Andreas Heyer, demonstrated that many approaches and programmes already exist in Europe with regard to economic incentives and OSH. This workshop was an ideal opportunity to exchange knowledge and experiences among the different experts and countries.