Luxembourg, 02/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - This Monday's Transport Council dedicated its morning to maritime transport safety (see previous article), it then adopted a resolution on passenger rights in air transport. It took stock of the situation on the financing of the plan for the European satellite positioning system, Galileo. At the end of the afternoon, the complex issue of social conditions in road transport was discussed. The president of the Council, Jean-Claude Gayssot, met the road trade unions during the morning. They were concerned about the delays in this dossier concerning them. "I told them of my will to progress rapidly on this dossier and explained the content of the compromise: we shall provisionally exclude, provisionally I insist, the independent hauliers in order to bring discussions out of deadlock. The aim is to avoid social dumping by developing and simplifying the directive on working hours for drivers, so that everyone interprets them in the same way. We also hope to avoid the exploitation of third country lorry drivers, who should be treated in the same social conditions as EU drivers", explained Jean-Claude Gayssot. The debate continued into the evening. "The aim is to reach an agreement in December", said the Council president.