Brussels, 06/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - Although major progress has been made over recent months on a large part of the revision process relating to the posted worker directive, the EU Council remains divided over certain points, two of which are considered fundamental for the text as a whole. Meeting in Brussels on Thursday 6 December, ministers responsible for labour and social affairs expressed very differing opinions on the subject of national checks on businesses and on the principle of joint responsibility.
During debates, a clear split appeared between member states on the subject of the list of national control measures that can be imposed by the administrative authorities of the host state on a company that uses posted workers (Article 9). Today, only eight states (the United Kingdom, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Hungary) support the European Commission's proposal to resort to an exhaustive (or closed) list that would establish the same measures throughout the EU. The argument used in favour of such a solution is that of greater legal security and transparency for service providers. On the other hand, other states (Slovenia, Malta, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Sweden) would like to ease this rule, keeping a closed, joint list but with the possibility of introducing new measures from time to time, with Council approval. Finally, states such as France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Luxembourg are opposed to the exhaustive list and suggest using an open list, which would thus respect the different existing national practices.
The split on the principle of joint responsibility (Article 12) is perhaps less marked as many solutions have been evoked for seeking to reach a compromise. Nonetheless, an agreement on this issue at the present time seems just as remote as that on the list of control measures, as several states (the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Hungary) have clearly stated their opposition to the existence of such a provision and the states in favour (Germany, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Luxembourg and France), in the form proposed by the Commission, refuse as a majority to introduce any easing. A certain form of flexibility to this principle has in fact been proposed, such as gradual introduction (Spain, Romania) or voluntary introduction (Ireland, Slovakia, Malta). A few states (Finland, Latvia, Portugal, Bulgaria and Austria) were in favour of the idea proposed by the Cypriot Presidency to introduce the principle of “due diligence” which could exempt service providers from their responsibilities. The future of this proposal remains uncertain, all the more as Ireland, which will be holding the reins of the Council as of 1 January, has underlined that it is necessary to be cautious on this matter. (JK/transl.jl)