Under the Treaty the Council may, by means of directives, adopt minimum requirements for encouraging improvements, especially in the working environment, to guarantee a better level of protection of the health and safety of workers. Such directives are to avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal constraints in a way which would hold back the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings.

As a first step, it is considered necessary to introduce measures protecting workers from the risks arising from vibrations owing to their effects on the health and safety of workers, in particular muscular/bone structure, neurological and vascular disorders. These measures are intended not only to ensure the health and safety of each worker on an individual basis, but also to create a minimum basis of protection for all Community workers in order to avoid possible distortions of competition.

This Directive lays down minimum requirements, thus giving Member States the option of maintaining or adopting more favourable provisions for the protection of workers, in particular the fixing of lower values for the daily action value or the daily exposure limit value for vibrations. The implementation of this Directive should not serve to justify any regression in relation to the situation which already prevails in each Member State.

A system of protection against vibration must limit itself to a definition, free of excessive detail, of the objectives to be attained, the principles to be observed and the fundamental values to be used, in order to enable Member States to apply the minimum requirements in an equivalent manner.

The level of exposure to vibration can be more effectively reduced by incorporating preventive measures into the design of work stations and places of work and by selecting work equipment, procedures and methods so as to give priority to reducing the risks at source. Provisions relating to work equipment and methods thus contribute to the protection of the workers involved.

Employers should make adjustments in the light of technical progress and scientific knowledge regarding risks related to exposure to vibration, with a view to improving the safety and health protection of workers.

In the case of sea and air transport, given the current state of the art it is not possible to comply in all circumstances with the exposure limit values for whole-body vibration; provision should therefore be made for duly justified exemptions in some cases.

This Directive constitutes a practical step towards creating the social dimension of the internal market.