Brussels, 12/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 11 September, the European Commission decided to withdraw its proposed regulation on posted workers, known as “Monti II”, the aim of which was to strike a new balance between the principle of the free provision of services and the right to carry out collective actions (EUROPE 10579). This regulation, which was presented in late March 2012, immediately led to strong reactions, both from the European social partners and the member states (EUROPE 10603).
Once the decision was made, the European Commission sent a letter of confirmation to the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, and of the European Commission, Herman Van Rompuy, on Wednesday 12 September. The notice of formal withdrawal is likely to be published next week, said the spokesperson to Commissioner Andor for Social Affairs and Employment, Jonathan Todd.
Defending its draft regulation, the Commission spoke of a "necessary rebalance" between economic freedoms and social rights, arguing that neither of the two principles could be allowed to take precedence over the other except under appropriate and measured circumstances. Basically, perfect neutrality between the two principles is needed, but with prevalence in specific cases to be determined by the national courts. This principle was criticised by the French minister at the time, Xavier Bertrand, who said that the formula selected was “at the very least ambiguous” and that it contradicted the “overall objective of the text”. He argued that the regulation as a whole gave “the impression of making the exercise of the right to strike conditional in a way which does not seem acceptable”.
The “Monti II” regulation caused an outcry, which became more pronounced over the months. Although this proposal required the unanimous support of the Council, a number of governments clearly informed the Commission of their opposition, among them Poland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Estonia. At the same time, by using the famous “yellow card” introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, 12 national parliaments called on the Council to re-examine its proposal, stating that the proposal potentially violated the principle of subsidiarity. As the Commission felt that this was unfounded, the use of this “yellow card” did not feature in the debate on withdrawing the proposal, Todd explained. He said that the decision to withdraw the text was made after the European institutions noted that the proposal did not have sufficient political support either at the European Parliament or at the Council.
The announcement of the withdrawal of the proposal was favourably welcomed by almost all of the political parties of the European Parliament. The right to strike is an exclusive national prerogative and the Commission's decision not to push “Monti II” through "shows national parliaments' growing role in EU legislation ", said the EPP MEPs, Csaba Ory of Hungary and Andreas Schwab of Germany. There was a similar reaction from the S&D group, but with a certain level of concern regarding the “huge legal uncertainties left by the European Court of Justice rulings (Ed.: in the Laval case) regarding the rights of workers”. “The problem remains and the Commission has a responsibility to act”, said its vice-president, Stephen Hughes of the UK. Reinforcing social and workers' rights through European legislation is something the Greens/EFA group is also calling for. Denmark's Emilie Turunen said that she hoped that the announced withdrawal was “a sign that the Commission has become aware that they have turned down the wrong road” to resolve a real problem. (JK/transl.fl)