text: **1 Executive summary**
  **How can the ‘state of OSH’ in the EU be assessed?**
  
  This report describes the**state of OSH in the EU**, and accordingly the**trends and the developments**, 
  that is, the changes in state over time. The report refers to different periods in time, mostly to the situation 
  between 2005 — after the substantive enlargement of the EU in 2004 — and 2019; if the use of earlier 
  or more recent start or endpoints was reasonable and data were available, a different time frame was 
  applied. 