2ND EU ministers fail to agree on working hours law

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday November 7, 2006

Brussels- European Union employment ministers failed to reach much-needed agreement on changing a disputed EU working-hours law, bringing national governments under risk of costly legal action. Talks aimed at settling a two-year row over the EU working-time directive left member states split over changes in the current rules, Finnish Employment Minister Tarja Filatov said.

Under the EU's current legislation, employees may not work more than an average of 48 hours per week calculated over a so-called "reference period" of 12 months.

New legislation is needed after a 2004 ruling by the EU's highest in court that time spent by doctors, nurses and other emergency workers "on call", but not actually working, should count towards the 48-hour limit.

As many as 23 EU countries are currently in breach of this judgement from the European Court of Justice. Only Luxembourg and Italy comply with the rules.

EU Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla warned that the commission had no choice but to bring legal action against national governments violating the bloc's working time rules.

However, he acknowledged that many member states were facing major problems with on-call time being counted as working time and with the amount of rest time that workers have to be granted.

Spidla said that a number of member times would now have to opt out of the current policy as well as to hire more employees in order to ensure working health care and emergency systems.

France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus vetoed a compromise proposal by the EU's Finnish presidency on overhauling the working time rules, because they demanded Britain should eventually have to give up its opt-out of the rules.

Britain is the only EU country that makes widespread use of a loophole in the law which allows an extension of the 48-hour limit if the employee agrees to work longer hours. Other countries use the clause on a sector-by-sector basis.

The Finnish EU presidency had proposed a compromise deal which which would have limited the use of opt-outs from EU legislation, but would have made rules on on-call work time more flexible.

"The Finnish proposal would have represented genuine social progress, but now we are back at the status quo," Spidla said, adding that the EU commission might consider mapping out new plans for a reform of the working time rules.

Finland is the fourth country at the EU's helmet which tried to broker a deal on the divisive issue.

The EU's working-time directive was adopted in 1993 as part of the bloc's bid to improve the health and safety of employees.

However, it allows countries not to apply the maximum working week of 48 hours under certain conditions.

Britain has long fought demands to end the opt-out, arguing that labour market flexibility boosts economic growth and cuts unemployment.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency