On Wednesday 13 December, the Council and European Parliament made some slight progress during the trialogue inter-institutional negotiations, particularly on the definition of remuneration, the official single Internet site and collective agreements, according to Annikky Lamp, the spokesperson for the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU, who spoke to EUROPE on Friday 15 December.
The question of remuneration has been retained in an effort to further clarify matters because the position of the Council would like to “determine" the question of remuneration while Parliament is more concerned with “defining" the term remuneration. On the question of the official single Internet site, there is common ground for understanding between the two institutions, as we reported in a previous article (see EUROPE 11920).
Lamp added that the co-legislators had begun to tackle the question of postings and temporary work agencies, compensation in the context of postings and the even more difficult question of outsourcing, as well as, finally, the legal basis. The latter is by far one of Parliament proposals that will remain the most divisive in the negotiations.
According to the information we have received, the stumbling blocks involve, overall, the question of long-term postings and the legal basis, two provisions upon which each institution is effectively unwilling to change its respective position. At the Council, an effective bloc arose around France, which does not want to accept the hard-won agreement at the Employment and Social Council (EPSCO) (see EUROPE 11885, 11884) which calls for a maximum of 12 months duration, with a six-month extension, whereas the European Parliament maintained the Commission proposal, namely 24 months.
The extension of the legal basis to article 153 of the TFEU remains a hard-line position of the European Parliament but it is not supported by either by the Council or the European Commission. According to one diplomatic source, this latter point will certainly be decided at the end of the negotiations. Another difficult chapter will involve subcontracting companies. The European Parliament would like to keep them within the scope of the directive, while the Council wants them excluded.
There is therefore a strong risk that the debates will being prolonged during the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU during the first half of 2018. This is bad news for a number of people in Parliament, who believe that Bulgaria has not sufficient appetite for tacking this dossier. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)