Brussels, 08/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - At the time of going to press, the ministers for employment and social affairs have been unable to agree on the compromise in the UK Presidency on various aspects of the working time directive. The stumbling block was mainly the issue of an opt-out of a working week of 48 hours. Positions within the Council remained the same. The United Kingdom, plus Italy, Germany and the majority of the new Member States are calling for no date to be laid down for the opt-out to end, believing that this decision should be up to the Member States themselves. France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary believe that there should be a date for the end of the opt-out. They also believe that the Member States choosing not to use this opt-out should have a period of five years to apply the directive on certain elements of working time. France and Sweden are also calling for the hospital sector to be able to continue to use the opt-out, and possibly other sectors as well, who will have to provide justification for this.
The talks were held on the basis of the questionnaire sent out by the UK Presidency. The President of the Council put the following questions, in particular: 1) is the opt-out applicable to the individual or to the contract?; 2) should "on call time" be considered as working time?; 3) what about a workers who have been engaged for a trial period, or who are on a short-term contract?; 4) is it possible to decline to apply the opt-out and, if so, under what circumstances? There were seemingly interminable discussions on each of these questions, and the Presidency finally decided to put forward a new compromise proposal, hoping to rally a few Member States and thus to obtain a political agreement. According to certain sources, however, a political agreement is extremely unlikely, despite the willingness of all parties to reach one.