Proposal 2

Update Recommendation 1999/519/EC and Workplace Directive 2013/35/EU. These "should be regularly reviewed and reassessed".

Detailed explanation

In the preamble section of the Recommendation 1999/519/EC, point (10) states: "...the framework should be regularly reviewed and reassessed in the light of new knowledge and developments in technology..."

As it was created in 1999 and has not been updated since, we consider it not up-to-date. For two decades wireless technologies and their uses have increased dramatically but no review of the Recommendation has taken place.

The EU Commission failed to act on EU Parliament instructions stated in Health concerns associated with electromagnetic fields; European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 on health concerns associated with electromagnetic fields. Parliament sounded a note of caution regarding the European standards intended to protect citizens from microwaves. On the strength of a near total consensus (the resolution was adopted by 522 votes to 16), Parliament called on the Council to amend its Recommendation 1999/519/EC and set stricter exposure limits for all equipment which emits electromagnetic fields in the frequencies between 0.1 MHz and 300 GHz.

Regarding the auditory effect, in ANNEX II, point 8 states: "...in order to limit and avoid auditory effects caused by thermoelastic expansion, an additional basic restriction is recommended." Since 1999, auditory effect limits have never been measured or reported on by any EU Regulator in any EU member state.

What is auditory effect?

Upon updating Recommendation 1999/519/EC, the EU Commission must amend the following Directives/Regulations which refer to it accordingly:

(Updated in September 2022: Federal Court in the States Instructs FCC (Federal Communication Commission) to Review Electromagnetic Radiation Standards. For 25 years the FCC in the States has refused to revise the regulations it set in 1996 that address what level of radiation from cell phones should be considered safe. Further, the court called the commission’s behavior “arbitrary and capricious,” since it had ignored evidence of the harm to children’s brains (which are not fully developed) and to male and female reproductive systems.)

(Updated in October 2022: STOA (Science and Technology Options Assessment) is a part of EU parliament. In july 2021 they published a review named Health impact of 5G. On the page 152 they conclude: "In light of this result ^*2, one policy option might be to revise residential and public exposure maxima throughout Europe. Levels could be reduced by at least 10 times, i.e. to around 6 V/m, which is an exposure level at which no cancer effects in experimental animals have been observed. 6 V/m seems also to be the precautionary limit where no adverse effects on fertility are concerned. It may sound impracticably low if we are to expand telecommunications by 5G, but it is not so." )

Footnotes