The Council's common position retains the most crucial amendment adopted by the European Parliament which relates to the extension of the provisions of the proposal to all types of hard woods. It also retains two other amendments that seek to:
- apply the same limit value (5.0 mg/m3) to mixtures of wood dusts;
- revise limit values for vinyl chloride monomer and wood dusts within 2 years of the date of adoption of the Directive on the basis of the latest scientific data.
The Council also decided to extend the implementation period to four years instead of the three years proposed by both the European Parliament and the Commission.
In addition, the Council considered that, as it has not been proven that all mutagenic substances are necessarily carcinogenic, these substances should be taken up in the text in their own right and not simply included in Annex I of Directive 90/394/EEC as proposed by the Commission. It therefore added the necessary references in the text of the proposal and changed the title of the proposal.�