By Henrietta Billings - 6th December 2004
Britain's controversial "opt-out" of EU working time rights is set to dominate Tuesday's meeting of employment ministers in Brussels.
The Dutch EU presidency is keen to make progress on a difficult dossier but negotiations are likely to be tricky, with national capitals still deeply divided over London's 'opt-out' of the 48 working week.
"Its not going to be easy," an official close to the negotiations told EUpolitix.com. "The UK wants progress on this but other member states are not in a hurry."
Earlier this year, Brussels unveiled proposals amending existing EU working time rules which set a maximum week of 48 hours.
Member states remain split on the question of whether the 'opt-out' should be phased out permanently - a position backed by Sweden and France among others.
But the UK is leading the 'opt-out' camp, arguing for the opt-out to remain and applied on an individual basis.
Under the compromise package put forward by the European Commission, employees would be able to 'opt-out' through collective agreements, and where collective agreements do not exist, the individual opt-out would remain subject to the employee's consent.
Temporary workers and a proposal that would give temporary staff the same pay and conditions as permanent workers was also on the original council of ministers agenda.
But after Friday's meeting of EU ambassadors, member states agreed unanimously to drop it - as there was "no chance of making any progress at council level", according to a presidency spokesman.
Britain backed by German is leading a blocking minority against this legislation, held up at council level since June last year.
The main hurdle in discussions is still the sensitive issue of the qualifying period during which the principle of equal treatment for temps in terms of pay and conditions would apply - and opinions on this point alone differ considerably.
Other items on the agenda include proposals designed to protect workers from optical radiation.
Ministers are expected to give this dossier the green light, completing a package of four health and safety directives on noise, vibration and electromagnetic fields.
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