Commission under fire over posted workers

The European Commission is being accused by MEPs of trying to introduce through the back-door measures to loosen the regulation of workers posted from one EU country to another.

Socialists and Greens are angry that the Commission has 'circumvented the co-decision rights of Parliament' after failing to free up the cross-border movement of workers through the controversial services directive.

The Commission introduced a set of guidelines on implementation of a 1996 directive concerning the posting of workers in April. The guidelines closely mirrored the original Articles 24 and 25 of the proposed services directive, which had been voted down by the European Parliament two months previously. Both the articles and the subsequent guidelines attempted to address concerns over the inconsistent application of existing legislation on the rights of workers sent to other EU countries.

'The Commission has tried to avoid with these guidelines the resistance of the Parliament and of many member states to Articles 24 and 25 of the services directive,' said German Green MEP Elisabeth Schroedter, who will be presenting a draft report containing recommendations on application of the 1996 directive at a meeting of the Parliament's committee on employment and social affairs on Monday (10 July).

MEPs are concerned that the guidelines, based on a 2004 Commission study on the services directive that identified barriers to the free movement of workers, will weaken provisions on host country supervision of workers' rights. The 1996 directive covers areas such as rest periods, paid annual holidays, minimum rates of pay, health and safety, the terms and conditions of employment of pregnant women and sex discrimination.

The guidelines establish that rules imposed on companies by some member states should no longer be considered obligatory. Schroedter insists, with the support of countries such as Germany, France and Austria, that member states should maintain existing powers to keep tabs on whether companies are fulfilling their duties towards workers.

Several new member states are exasperated by what they perceive as a deliberate attempt to freeze out their workers. Poland, which faces restrictions when sending workers to Germany, is a case in point. 'The guidance is very good as it summarises the most important barriers that prevent free movement,' said centre-right Polish MEP Malgorzata Handzlick, who last month reported the opinion of Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee on the matter. 'We believe the [1996] directive should not be changed, but it doesn't deal with the barriers in the internal market. The problem with the directive is that it is not precise enough and each member state implements it their own way,' she said.