Brussels, 14/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The meeting of negotiators from the European Parliament, Council Presidency and European Commission on Thursday 13 February enabled a provisional agreement to be reached on the whole of the Chapter VI (on the cross-border enforcement of administrative fines and penalties) of the proposal for a directive (96/71/EC) on the posting of workers. This is therefore the second chapter, alongside Chapter III (on administrative cooperation), that has now been completed - albeit only provisionally.
The compromise on Chapter VI corresponds, except for a few details, to the Council's proposal. This chapter deals with the situation where a member state's administration is not able to impose sanctions on a company whose headquarters are in another member state but which posts workers on its soil. In this case, this administration could have fines and/or administrative financial sanctions enforced by appealing to the competent authorities of the other member state. These authorities would be all the more encouraged to cooperate because the amount of the fine would be paid to them. The possibility of imposing financial penalties was introduced by the Council, the Commission not having proposed this. Three grounds for refusal were provided for by the Council and remain in the compromise.
Besides Articles 9 and 12 (see EUROPE 11018), it is again Article 3 (the factual elements of posting) that poses the greatest difficulty. The Parliament continues to demand that the means be strengthened for fighting against bogus self-employed workers, while the Council wants to limit the text's scope of application to employees. In the same article, in a situation where an authority notes that a posted worker is not in fact posted, the Parliament also wants the most favourable arrangements of the Rome I regulation for the worker to serve for determining the law applicable to the work contract. (JK/transl.fl)