Plant and industrial safety at a glance

Germany's national legislation on plant and industrial safety has been profoundly altered in recent years due to a number of EC directives. There has been a particularly significant replacement of national regulations by European requirements concerning equipment characteristics, most recently in the field of plant requiring inspection.

The new "Betriebssicherheitsverordnung" (Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health), which can be seen below along with the Statement of Legislative Intent, thus pursues three primary objectives, i.e.:

• to transpose several EC directives into national law,
• to ensure uniform legislation on industrial plant safety with a clear separation of characteristics and operation, and to reform the field of plant requiring inspection and
• to reshuffle the relationship between state work equipment legislation and Berufsgenossenschaft accident-prevention regulations so as to eliminate any duplicate provisions.

The adoption of the "Betriebssicherheitsverordnung" is a further systematic step on the path towards harmonisation and modernisation of OSH regulations, a path which began with the amendment of the "Gerätesicherheitsgesetz" (Equipment Safety Act).

LASI's "Technischer Arbeitsschutz und Anlagensicherheit" (Technical OSH and Plant Safety) subcommittee (referred to as "UA 4") has drawn up guidelines on the "Betriebssicherheitsverordnung", which offer considerable assistance on how to translate the ordinance into practice.

Under the heading TRBS you find all published technical rules for working reliability and ABS resolutions in their current version.

This page also contains a list of other national legislation related to plant and industrial safety and the reference sources for the underlying EU legal documents:

Part 1: "Betriebssicherheitsverordnung" (Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health)

1. Text of the ordinance
   To make the Ordinance document more practical to use, there are links to the EC directives and national legislation to which it refers.
2. "Betriebssicherheitsverordnung" - Statement of legislative intent 

Part 2: Other relevant national legislation

A. Requirements concerning equipment characteristics

1. "Geräte- und Produktsicherheitsgesetz" (Equipment and Product Safety Act, abbreviated to GPSG in German)
2. Ordinances based on the GPSG

B. Health and safety of workers at work

1. Underlying law: "Arbeitsschutzgesetz" (Occupational Health and Safety Act)
   - English (working) version of Law on the performance of occupational safety and health measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work
2. Ordinances based on the Occupational Health and Safety Act:
   • Arbeitsstättenverordnung (Workplace Ordinance)
   • Bildschirmarbeitsverordnung (Ordinance on VDU Work)
   • Biostoffverordnung (Ordinance on Biological Agents)
   • Gefahrstoffverordnung (Ordinance on Dangerous Substances)
   • PSA-Benutzungsverordnung (Ordinance on the Use of PPE)