Applicants may need extra time to adapt labour laws

Date: 15/10/1998

By Simon Coss

SOME of the leading applicants for EU membership are likely to ask for extra time to match up to the Union's tough labour laws when negotiations begin in earnest next year.

Estonian social affairs experts have already indicated that Tallinn could well ask for more time to phase in the Union's social legislation.

They argue that it is important that the requirement to adapt to EU rules covering issues such as health and safety at work does not have an overly detrimental effect on the country's economic development.

"It is possible that we would have to ask for some transitional arrangements," said one.

But while one of the smallest countries currently queuing up at the EU's door is warning that it may need extra time to make the Union's social grade, the biggest applicant - Poland - seems more bullish.

Even the business sector appears ready to meet the challenge. "There is a spirit on all sides to make corrections to our laws so that we can be in line with EU legislation," said Jerzy Nowak of the Polish industry federation.

The European Commission has already made its views on the issue clear. "I don't envisage any opt-outs from the Community's social dimension," Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn said during a visit to Estonia earlier this year.

The same message has been spelled out by Flynn and his senior officials on trips to other applicant states.

The highly sensitive issue of possible transition periods for some of the applicants will not be raised when social policy experts from the six 'first wave' candidates - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus - hold a three-day meeting with Commission officials next week.

The aim of the meeting is to enable the Commission to assess the progress the applicants have made so far in complying with the EU's social policy legislation and what advances still need to be achieved.

"There is a great deal of variety between the candidate countries, but issues such as health and safety at work for example are likely to be difficult subjects," said one Commission expert who will be attending the talks.

One of the main problems which has cropped up again and again in the enlargement process is the fact that laws passed by national legislatures in the applicant states are often not enforced on the ground.

The countries concerned often simply do not have enough officials in place to ensure this happens.

However, some observers have pointed out that swelling the ranks of the civil service in the applicant states would be a hard policy to sell to the public. With the exception of Cyprus, all of the hopefuls only recently threw off oppressive Communist regimes maintained by overbearing bureaucracies.