Member states face court over restrictions on posted workers

Vladimír Špidla, the employment and social affairs commissioner, is preparing to do battle with member states placing restrictions on the posting of workers to second EU countries. Austria, France and Germany are among countries facing legal action by the end of the year for hampering foreign firms that send their workers abroad.

'It’s about making sure the legislation is enforced properly. It is the duty of the Commission to push for legal action,' said a European Commission official. In an analysis of member states’ behaviour accompanying guidelines on application of the 1996 posting of workers directive, to be published next week, the Commission lists bureaucratic hurdles often used to pursue 'goals that go beyond the protection of posted workers’ rights'.

Member states are likely to take umbrage at Špidla’s implicit judgement that barriers have less to do with protecting workers than with protecting domestic firms from cross-border competition. Requirements can include demands that firms posting workers have a representative in the host country, as is the case in nine EU countries, and rules forcing foreign workers to carry various social documents at all times, as applied in 14 member states.

The document is likely to dredge up bad feeling among member states fearing increased social dumping, when domestic workers are undercut on wages and conditions by their foreign counterparts, as a result of the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. A German diplomat said that the directive had been applied 'to the letter' and that measures were 'above all about avoiding social dumping'.

The Commission takes a strong line in the guidelines on member states imposing rules 'on a general presumption of fraud or abuse by a person or company exercising a fundamental freedom guaranteed by the treaty', but acknowledges that 'for a number of member states this constitutes a highly sensitive issue, touching upon key characteristics of their social model'.

Publication of the guidelines has been postponed by a week to 13 June.