The European Commission has proposed creating an annual European Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Accidents at Work, to be observed every year on 8 August.
The date marks the Marcinelle mining disaster in Belgium, when 262 workers from 12 nationalities died in a fire at the Bois du Cazier coal mine on 8 August 1956, Commission Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu said in a statement on Friday..
Many of those killed were Italian workers who had moved to Belgium for jobs.
The proposal follows calls from the European Parliament and several EU member states.
More than 3,000 workers die each year in workplace accidents across the European Union, while over 170,000 are estimated to die from work-related illness.
Links to wider EU workplace safety plans
Safe and healthy working conditions are recognised in the EU’s founding treaty and in the European Pillar of Social Rights — a set of principles meant to guide social and employment policy in the bloc, Mînzatu stated.
She also pointed to the EU’s current strategic framework on health and safety at work, which sets out challenges, objectives and actions for the coming years.
That framework includes a “vision zero” approach, described by the Commission as an effort to eliminate work-related deaths in the EU, and work to update rules on hazardous chemicals linked to diseases including cancer, reproductive harm and respiratory illness.
The statement on the proposal was made by Mînzatu ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Marcinelle tragedy in 2026, according to the Commission.
