Brussels, 23/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - With enlargement of the EU rising to 25 and in an economic context of restructuring, mergers and relocations, the European Confederation of Trade Unions (ETUC) launched an appeal for methods and procedures for revising the directive on European workplace committees to be speeded up. This revision has been for a long time, according to the ETUC, extremely urgent. The workplace committees were launched in response to the launch by the European Commission at the beginning of the week, of the first phase of the consultation between inter-professional and Community sectoral social partners for the re-examination of the directive on European workplace committees (EUROPE 21 April p 11).
Declaring that it is "ready for this consultation", the ETUC wants the employers organisation, UNICE, which was opposed to this directive and its revision to support a swift revision, which would improve and make relations between social partners at a European level more effective.