ABSTRACT
In all European countries there are national regulatory strategies on the management of chemical risks at work. Indeed this might be anticipated given the scale of use of chemical substances and the extent of the associated health and safety problems discussed in Chapter 1. It might be further anticipated that as a consequence of membership in the European Union there would be a degree of convergence between these strategies among different member states as the effects of harmonization are felt. This is also the case. However, such convergence does not mean that there are no longer significant differences between national approaches to workplace chemical risk regulation. As this chapter demonstrates, such differences form an important feature of the institutional implementation of chemical risk management regulation.
