Brussels, 27/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 26 January, the European Parliament's Employment Committee organised a public hearing on the implementation of the worker secondment directive that has been much in the news recently, along with the Services Directive. There are many problems in the transposition of the 16 December 1996 directive and the European Parliament is considering whether the legislation needs re-writing. The EP will be drafting an own initiative report following the 26 January hearing and a European Commission progress report expected to be published in March this year on the outcome of consultation with stakeholders. The assessment by all the European Commission's DGs will look at measures on the ground to implement the directive; legal aspects like the maximum time allowed to be seen as 'secondment' and basic salaries) and the definition of a seconded worker.
In a 2003 report on the implementation of the worker secondment directive (COM(2003)458), the European Commission said that no Member States had had problems transposing the directive. But problems have arisen in practice because of the complex nature of the legislation. Various areas of conflict need to be clarified, but the European Parliament and most of the stakeholders do not want the directive re-written. Therese de Liedekerke of Unice comments that the directive is vital but revising it is not. She says the directive provides a balanced framework of rules to be respected during a period of secondment and the problems that may arise can be sorted out in the countries concerned. She said that practical improvements could be made, like providing better information for companies as a vital precondition for implementing the directive properly, and greater administrative cooperation to ensure better monitoring and follow-up.
Catelene Passchier, a representative of the ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation), said the directive was a nightmare that everyone was talking about but nobody really understood. The underlying principle, she said, is vital because seconding workers has to be defended even more these days than in the past, but the system had to be simplified and the real questions asked, like what is secondment exactly? What is the difference between a seconded worker and a temporary worker? Passchier is asking the European Commission to do more by providing clear, strict guidelines for Member States in the future and producing a roadmap of short-term measures to be taken. She said the basic principles underlying the directive were good and should not be altered but improvements are needed so workers can be more confident about being seconded.
Agnes Thibault of UEAPME said that the worker secondment directive was vital for SMEs to avoid problems of unfair competition within the single market. She said the UEAPME agreed that the directive does not need re-writing, but some improvements would have to be made, like providing companies with clearer information in several languages. There were also more specific problems to be addressed, like prior statements (some companies like this idea because prior statements would help ensure the directive is properly applied, but some Member States have establishing over-binding systems that can be seen as a kind of protectionism, she said); fines, a type of coercion which can be justified but there are cases of abuse in the field (disproportionate fines); subcontracting, on which the directive does not include any clauses on responsibility but joint responsibility of major contracting partners is required to ensure workers' rights are respected, argues the UEAPME, calling for a European study of the issue; and defining key terms like salary, genuine freelancers and 'forced' freelancers, and minimum wage.
Accepting the main demands of all parties (defining key ideas, better access to information, monitoring and inspection measures, etc), the EP rapporteur, Elisabeth Schroedter (Greens/EFA, Germany), said the directive was pretty wonderful at the end of the day and managed to combine the principle of country of origin with the host country (an area still causing problems for the Services Directive).