Brussels, 26/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament and the Council began what could be an arduous discussion on the working hours of hauliers, in the context of conciliation procedure. After an unfruitful three-way meeting between Parliament/Council/Commission last week, the Permanent Representatives of Member States were to seek, on Friday afternoon, a proposal of compromise on the main point of divergence between the Council and Parliament: the inclusion of independently self-employed drivers in the scope of the directive. With the adoption, in June, of the report by British Labour member Stephen Hugues (see EUROPE of 15 June), the EP had stipulated that self-employed drivers were to be automatically included in the directive for three years after its enforcement, while the Council had linked their inclusion to an "assessment" of the situation by the Commission after two years. This compromise had allowed ministers to reach an agreement by qualified majority, after two years and one night of negotiation. Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, Austria and Portugal were generally in favour of including self-employed drivers, whereas the Netherlands, Finland and Greece, and to a certain extent the United Kingdom, were opposed. The Permanent Representatives are at present working on a definition of "self-employed" which would allow "bogus self-employed" to be excluded (some 3.5 million drivers are independent in the EU). On the basis of the Parliament's suggestions, an idea under discussion would be to take up the definition of "self-employed" hauliers given by the 6th framework directive on VAT, which specifies that employees are persons "bound to their employer by a contract of service or any other legal relationship creating links of subordination concerning working conditions and salary and the employer's responsibility". The Council is expected, on the other hand, to accept the Parliament's modifications on the inclusion of the time that drivers are "on standby" during their working hours, and on a daily duration of work limited to eight hours (instead of ten) for days including night work. The three-way meeting should meet again on 8 November, before a formal conciliation meeting on 20 or 22 November.