The chair of the European Parliament’s transport committee, Karima Delli (Greens/EFA), told EUROPE in Strasbourg on Tuesday 24 October that she would be fighting to ensure transport was not the poor relation in the review of the directive on posting workers.
The interview took place after a compromise was reached at the Council of the EU the evening before on revision of the directive on posting workers (see EUROPE 11890). The ministers agreed that international transport should be covered by EU Directive 96/71/EC until a lex specialis in the mobility package (see EUROPE 11799) is passed and applied.
This goes against the desire of the European Parliament’s employment and social affairs committee, which called on Monday 16 October (see EUROPE 11884) for the keeping and amending of Recital 10, stating that international road transport should be covered by the revised posted worker directive, which provides greater protection than Directive 96/71/EC, before a lex specialis is passed.
This divergence was criticised by a number of MEPs, such as Christine Revault D’Allonnes Bonefoy (S&D, France) and Élizabeth Morin-Chartier (EPP, France). There is now uncertainty about the passing of a lex specialis for transport, since the issue is a hot potato at both the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11811) and the Council (see EUROPE 11804).
Delli did not fully sweep aside the Council’s compromise, admitting that it made progress in terms of real pay and application of collective bargaining agreements for posted workers, but she said she could not accept the concession to the transport sector and opposed an à la carte social Europe. She said she was against an à la carte social Europe and that transport should not be sacrificed. She also called on France's President Emmanuel Macron to put as much energy into transport as he has put into other sectors.
Mobility package. Delli returned to various social issues from the mobility package. Wishing to fight social dumping with all her force, she regretted that the European Commission had suggested not making smart tachographs compulsory for all lorries in Europe until 2034, thus making it more difficult to verify that drivers are complying with EU law.
Delli suggested setting up a European agency for the road sector in order to monitor illegal letterbox company practices and draw up a blacklist of road operators in order to defend European workers and the best social offer. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)