Is a safety committee or a worker safety representative required in Belgium?

Yes, a joint committee is required from 50 workers. Every technical business unit that normally employs on average at least 50 workers must set up a Committee for prevention and protection at work, with elected worker delegates; in underground mines and quarries the threshold is 20. Belgium has no separate individual "safety representative": below the threshold, the trade-union delegation takes over the Committee's tasks, and where there is no delegation the employer consults the workers directly.

Short answer

• Committee (Comité pour la prévention et la protection au travail, CPPT / Comité voor preventie en bescherming op het werk, CPBW): compulsory at an average of 50 workers per technical business unit, or 50 in the legal entity as a whole; 20 in underground mines and quarries.
• Composition: employer delegates appointed by the employer and worker delegates elected in social elections held every four years; the internal service acts as secretariat.
• Meetings: at least once a month, and when at least one third of the worker delegates ask; the employer or its delegate chairs.
• No Committee: the union delegation exercises its tasks and enjoys the same dismissal protection.
• No Committee and no union delegation: direct participation through a register and notice board.

What the Committee does

The Committee gives prior advice on the global prevention plan and its changes, and on the draft annual action plan. The action plan cannot be implemented before the Committee has advised, unless the year has started. The prior agreement of the Committee is needed to appoint, replace or remove a prevention adviser of the internal service, and the agreement of all worker members is needed to appoint an internal psychosocial prevention adviser or a person of trust.

Other duties include:

1. Delegating members to carry out, at least once a year, a thorough inspection of all workplaces with the competent prevention adviser and line manager.
2. Sending a delegation to the scene immediately after a serious accident or incident, when serious risk of imminent damage exists, or when one third of the worker delegation asks.
3. Meeting the inspectors through a designated delegation during their visits.
4. Giving advice on the causes and preventive measures in the circumstantial report after a serious accident.
5. On Seveso sites, being consulted when the operator draws up the internal emergency plan (article 11 of the Seveso cooperation agreement of 16 February 2016).

Direct participation in small firms

Where there is neither a Committee nor a union delegation, the employer consults the workers directly. The employer provides a register in which workers can write proposals discreetly and a notice board or another means such as email, showing the contact details of the external service and of the inspectorate. When the employer makes a proposal, workers have 15 days to write comments or pass them through the internal or external service, which forwards them anonymously with its own advice. No response counts as agreement.

How Belgium compares

The EU Framework Directive requires consultation and balanced participation of workers or their representatives, and leaves the form to national law. In the United Kingdom, safety representatives and safety committees follow separate regulations.

Common mistakes

• Counting only one site. The threshold also applies to the legal entity as a whole, whatever the number at each site.
• Treating direct participation as optional. It is the legal route where neither a Committee nor a union delegation exists.

Related on excodex

• Occupational safety and health in Belgium: law, authorities and employer duties
• Is a written risk assessment mandatory in Belgium, and how often must it be reviewed?
• OSH committees and worker representatives in Türkiye

Standards and further reading

• Act of 4 August 1996, Articles 49 to 53 (Committees, union delegation, direct participation): FPS Employment PDF
• Code of well-being at work, book II, titles 7 and 8, consolidated 13 June 2026: FPS Employment PDF

This article is general occupational safety and health information prepared by the excodex editorial team. It does not replace the applicable legislation, standards, manufacturers' instructions or the assessment of a competent OSH professional or occupational physician.