Premier element

Legislation

 

The issues of violence and harassment have aroused considerable and growing interest across Europe in recent years. There remains, however, a great disparity between awareness and recognition of the problem within European countries.

The situation in Europe concerning the regulation of workplace violence is extremely varied and constantly changing. Within Europe, the spectrum of regulatory options has been covered. In some countries, there is specific legislation to tackle the problem, while elsewhere existing criminal, civil, environmental and health and safety legislation is considered sufficient to deal with it. At the other end of the regulatory spectrum, some European countries tackle the problem with non-legislative measures, such as codes of practice, regulations and collective agreements, while other countries have only made initial efforts to regulate workplace violence.


European Directives

The new Article 13 in the EC Treaty, introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty, enables the Council to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. Within the scope of Art. 13, two directives have been adopted in 2000 and 2002 addressing sexual harassment and racial harassment, respectively:

These directives include new definitions of racial and sexual harassment applicable across Europe, provide directions on the effective enforcement of the law and sanctioning, and make clear the responsibility of Member States to designate a body or bodies to promote the work of the directives. While the first directive applies to all situations of racial harassment, the second deals specifically, among others, with sexual harassment at work. This is an area where the EU bodies have concentrated their efforts for many years.

 

Please click here to know more about the specific legislation in  Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Spain.