By Chris Jones - 9th December 2005
EU employment ministers on Thursday made significant progress in the long-running negotiations over working time, but there are still major hurdles to overcome.
“We have made more progress today than we’ve ever made in debating this issue over a number of years, but we are not yet in a position to reach a political agreement,” said British trade and industry chief Alan Johnson, who chaired the meeting.
European capitals are divided over the opt-out clause used by Britain and other countries, which allows employees to work for longer than the maximum 48-hour week.
Britain has refused to give up the opt-out, negotiated in 1993, arguing that it gives greater flexibility to workers and improves the country’s competitiveness.
France and Sweden lead the camp of those opposed to the opt-out, arguing that new proposals allowing the working week to be calculated over a year provide sufficient flexibility to employers.
They have backed the European Commission’s proposal to phase out the opt-out over a seven-year period.
The European Parliament, meanwhile, has taken an even tougher line, seeking an end to the opt-out within three years.
The British proposal is thought to have stipulated that the opt-out should “eventually” become redundant, but set no time frame.
The proposal was rejected by 15 of the 25 member states, but Johnson suggested that this was not so much because of the opt-out issue but rather disagreements over how the working week is calculated.
“The one issue that remains very difficult to resolve is that in some member states they calculate the working week on the basis of the contract rather than the individual,” he said.
“This means that in some member states, people can do two jobs and go beyond the 48 hour week.”
Despite the remaining differences, Johnson suggested that the need to reach an agreement on another issue – the classification of on-call time – had given ministers a new impetus.
Recent European court rulings that on-call time must be counted towards the working week have left as many as 20 member states in breach of EU law, with most excluding on-call time from the working week.
Johnson said that he remained optimistic that an agreement could be reached soon.
“There are two very different camps, but we are trying to build a bridge between them.”
“We have been painstaking in our efforts to try and accommodate both points of view, but unfortunately we couldn’t quite cross the gap, yet.”
“But I remain optimistic of a deal because of the change of tone in the debate.”
“There is a clear understanding that if politicians don’t sort this, the courts will.”
European Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said that the progress made on Thursday was “enormous” and that he still held out hope of an agreement under the UK presidency.
Johnson was more cautious, saying that while the UK was “thinking seriously about how we can use remaining weeks to move the dossier forward” and agreement was more likely under the Austrian presidency, which begins on January 1.
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