Slovakia, Latvia and Cyprus officially announced their candidacy to host the future European Labour Authority (ELA), on the occasion of the adoption of a general approach by the competent ministers at the Employment and Social Policy Council (EPSCO) on Thursday 6 December.
These three countries insisted that the "new" Member States, which do not yet host European agencies, should be given priority to obtain this seat before submitting their official application (see EUROPE 12102). The Czech Republic has officially supported Bratislava.
The general approach adopted weakens the draft Authority by making its role clearly optional, as Member States may request its services on a voluntary basis for joint inspections and to settle a dispute. In addition, the majority of delegations agreed to exclude the use of mediation for social security matters and to change the name of the entity to "Agency" (see EUROPE 12153).
The Commission regretted these changes, as did France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Cyprus. The latter states supported the compromise in the hope of a rebalancing during the interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament.
On the contrary, most of the Eastern Member States, but also Scandinavian members and Germany welcomed the development of the text. Satisfaction was less clear on the Polish side, which, while supporting the compromise, would have liked to see the removal of the obligation to justify itself in the event of refusal to participate in a joint inspection.
Hungary, for its part, announced that it did not support the proposal, in particular because of the inclusion of road transport in the scope of the TEA - a point that many Member States in Central and Eastern Europe regretted. Bulgaria has also added a declaration to the compromise. It should be noted that Sweden did not support the compromise because of the unnecessary administrative burden that the new entity would introduce.
Inter-institutional negotiations are expected to start on 8 January under the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. These are likely to be difficult, as parliamentarians have recently adopted a position close to the European Commission's proposal (see EUROPE 11980).
A political agreement in the Council was not a foregone conclusion. The Austrian Presidency of the Council did not seem to have much appetite for the matter, before changing its mind during its mandate, under the impetus of the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)