Brussels, 03/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Council of Employment and Social Policy Ministers from the enlarged EU is to meet on 7 December in Brussels under the chairmanship of Dutch Social Affairs and Employment Minister Aart Jan De Geus, with the participation of European Commissioner Vladimir Spidla. Work will mainly focus on adjustment of working hours, temporary work, the social agenda in the context of the Lisbon Strategy, and protection of workers exposed to optical radiation. Points on the agenda are:
1) The Council should reach a political agreement on the proposal of directive on minimum health and safety conditions for workers exposed to optical radiation. This is the fourth directive in the "exposure to physical agents" package (the three others concern exposure to electromagnetic waves and fields, vibrations and noise - the last two have already been adopted). Ministers will hold a public debate on this point.
2) The Council will hold a political debate on the proposal of directive that updates the 1993 directive on adjustment of working hours. The new text mainly aims to ensure worker health and safety by protecting workers against the effect of excessively long hours and perturbing work regimes, and at the same time giving companies and Member States greater flexibility in managing working hours.
"The debate will be interesting but difficult", the Netherlands' Deputy Permanent Representative for the EU, Henne Schuwer, told the press. The proposal comes in the wake of the rulings by the European Court of Justice on the Simap and Jaeger affairs. "In some cases", the Dutch diplomat recalled, "rest time is considered as working time". He went on to give the example of hospital doctors whose rest periods are also periods when they are on call. This is also true for firemen and the police. In the United Kingdom, being on call is considered being at work, Mr Schuwer notes, adding: "There is a directive on working hours which stipulates the maximum number of working hours per week and therefore, if one counts hours on call as working hours, one easily exceeds the authorised number of working hours". The question now posed by the new text is whether Member States should or not be granted an opt-out, that is, whether one should, or not, allow workers to put in more than 48 hours work per week, under certain conditions. Henne Schuwer asked whether this would be penalised within the framework of an individual or collective contract, recalling that countries which practise the collective agreements system naturally prefer the collective contract solution. In his view, "no-one can make concessions, as this would mean that one's own country would have to give up its own kind of social contract".
3) The Council should reach a political agreement on the amended proposal for a directive on the working conditions of temporary workers, mainly with a view to striking a balance between job flexibility and security. "Little progress has been recorded on this dossier", the Dutch diplomat admitted, but noted that "there is a link with the question of working hour adjustment". As our former Foreign Minister, Hans van Mierlo, said: "To resolve a problem, you might as well broaden it", and "this is what we shall be doing here with these two dossiers", Mr Schuwer said.
As for the rest, ministers are expected to approve the opinion of the Standing Committee on Employment on the Commission's annual report on migration and integration. They will, moreover, hold an exchange of views on the agenda for social policy in the context of the Lisbon Strategy, with a report on the activities of the Presidency, the Kok Report on mid-term review of the strategy, and the joint opinion of the Employment Committee and the Social Protection Committee. Finally, they will generally examine the directive on equal treatment between men and women in the workplace, the programmes concerning gender equality, and the implementation of the Beijing platform for action with, in this last context, the Presidency presenting results of its study on "women at work".