Almost two years to the day after the initiative was presented by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU reached a final agreement on the 'posted workers' directive on the evening of Monday 19 March, having made a few technical changes to the allowances and the terminology on the lex specialis.
“Agreement on the revision of the posted workers directive!”, Elisabeth Morin-Chartier (EPP, France), co-rapporteur alongside Agnes Jongerius (S&D, Netherlands), tweeted mid-evening, adding: “the course is now set for the vote at the ‘employment and social affairs’ committee, plenary and Council! Our determination is only stronger” (our translation).
As the political questions had been addressed at the beginning of the month following a long inter-institutional meeting (see EUROPE 11972), this trialogue was to focus on the recitals. However, the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council said that it had a very narrow majority among ministers, after the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal went over into the camp of member states opposed to the common approach agreed upon (see EUROPE 11983).
This means that two points were discussed: allowances and the lex specialis. On allowances, the Council called for the spirit of the interpretive declaration of the Commission to be included in the legislative text (in article 3), setting in stone the principle that allowances must be governed under the terms of the employment contract of the posted worker. In other words, this is a clarification stressing that allowances must be reimbursed under the rules of the country of origin.
The point concerning the lex specialis was considerably more involved. At the ‘Employment and Social Policy’ Council (EPSCO) of October 2017 (see EUROPE 11889, 11890), the member states agreed for the terms of the current version of the directive to apply to the international road transport sector until such time as the lex specialis entered into force, several sources explained to us.
However, this wording is reported to have led to a succession of three different regimes for the road transport sector: firstly, the directive in its current version, then the revised version, then the lex specialis terms. Having consulted its legal services, the Council called for “entry into force” to be replaced by “implementation”, to reduce the change of regime to two regimes, specifically the one governed by the 96 directive, then the lex specialis regime.
The Bulgarian Presidency is reported to have tried to reopen the transposition timeframe one last time, but without success.
The Presidency is to present the national ambassadors (Committee of Permanent Representatives – Coreper) with the final agreement this Wednesday, according to the spokesperson of the Bulgarian Presidency, Elitsa Zlateva. Parliament’s expressed preference is for a plenary vote in either May or June.
Readers may recall that the major political agreements are as follows: - the introduction of allowances; - a two-year transposition period with immediate implementation; - coverage of ‘non-genuine posted workers’; - extension to sectorial and local collective agreement; - keeping a reference to a lex specialis for international road transport; - a maximum posting period of 12 months, with the possibility of extending for six months. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)