Two days from a prospective agreement in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), the Council of European Employers of the Metal, Engineering and Technology-Based Industries (CEEMET) has spoken, in a press release published on Monday 9 April, of its concerns following the provisional agreement found on the Posted Workers Directive.
CEEMET believes that the agreement found contains "unclear concepts" and will lead to "diverging interpretations" between member states. For example, the organisation believes that the definition of posted workers, as proposed by the revised text, poses a problem.
A posted worker is thus defined as "a worker, who for a limited period carries out his work in the territory of a member state other than the state in which he normally works", CEEMET says. However, in the case of business trips, the organisation of workshops abroad and the manning of a stand at a fair this definition would be problematic, according to CEEMET.
In this framework, CEEMET hails the words of European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Marianne Thyssen as reported by Belgian daily newspaper De Standaard (6 March). Thyssen indeed gave assurances that business meetings will not be considered as posting. However, CEEMET wants this specificity to be applied for other situations, especially the holding of fairs.
Furthermore, CEEMET calls on the Commission to set up a 'comparison calculator' enabling businesses easily to compare the remuneration applicable between two member states.
The negotiations on the Posted Workers Directive are entering their final stage following the provisional agreement found in March (see EUROPE 11985, 11972). An agreement at ambassador level is expected to be found on Wednesday 11 April. At the European Parliament, the text is due to be put to the vote in the plenary session of May or June. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)