Gijon, 03/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - Spanish Transport Minister Francisco Alvarez-Casco confirmed at the informal Council in Gijon that Spain has initiated a request at the European Court of Justice for cancellation of the directive on the working hours of drivers. In the text of the appeal, which was diffused to the press, Spain considers that the clause of the directive concerning the inclusion of self-employed drivers in the scope of the directive runs counter to case law concerning the free exercise of a professional activity. It is also contrary to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and its article on free enterprise. It considers, moreover, that the inclusion of self-employed drivers is tantamount to discrimination against them and is not warranted for security reasons.
Spain had been placed in a position of minority, with Finland and Portugal, during the adoption of the directive on working hours of lorry/coach drivers on 11 March 2002, after more than six years' negotiations. The directive, which must be transposed into national law before 2005, fixes the weekly working time at 48 hours on average over a reference period of four months, with a maximum weekly period of 60 hours (as opposed to 78 hours at the present time). Night workers will no longer be able to work more than 10 hours. While the Council reached a compromise for excluding "self-employed drivers", the Parliament introduced a clause providing for their inclusion to be studied in 2009 on the basis of a Commission report that above all verifies whether the European text has led to proliferation of "false self-employed").