Portugal targets working-time deal

The Portuguese presidency and the European Parliament are accelerating efforts to broker a deal on working-time rules.

Discussions yesterday (12 September) between Spanish Socialist MEP Alejandro Cercas, who drafted Parliament’s opinion on the directive in 2005, and Portuguese Employment Minister José Vieira da Silva yielded positive results.

The Portuguese minister sees a ‘window of opportunity’ for reaching a deal, said Cercas. But, he added, time would be of the essence. It is thought that the European Commission might withdraw its revisions to the directive, first proposed in 2004, if the presidency fails to broker a deal by December.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision to support the stalled proposal on EU temporary agency workers, announced at the annual Trades Union Congress on Monday (10 September), has sparked hopes that he might also shift on the working-time rules. France, Italy and Spain blocked attempts by the Finnish presidency last November to seal a deal on working hours, dissatisfied with the UK’s continuing opt-out from the directive.

Current rules limit weekly working time to 48 hours over a period of six months. The Finnish presidency had proposed that the 48-hour weekly average be calculated over a longer reference period of up to 12 months with the maximum working week limited to an average of 60 hours over a three-month period in all member states, including the UK.

MEPs on Parliament’s employment and social affairs committee yesterday discussed an impact assessment on the implementation of the current version of the directive. The report recommended that the reference period for calculating the weekly average be extended to one year. The simplification would allow for flexibility without necessarily leading to reductions in worker protection.

Cercas warned, however, against placing undue emphasis on reference periods. Parliament was concerned, he said, with the effects of working hours on workers’ health and safety, and on work-life balance.

A Commission official said that Špidla was still investigating the type of legal action that should be taken against member states that are still not applying the current rules properly. Špidla was expected, she said, to broach the issue "in the corridors" of a ministerial meeting in Lisbon today (13 September), where a paper on flexicurity is to be discussed. Employ-ment ministers discussed the blocked directive on temporary agency workers yesterday.

The Portuguese presidency and the European Parliament are accelerating efforts to broker a deal on working-time rules.