Brussels, 06/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) welcomed the Commission communication on the implementation of the posting of workers directive (see, inter alia, EUROPE 9167) because it emphasised the need for Member States to step up their actions and activities to monitor compliance with directive 96/71/EC and take effective measures in cases of non-compliance. The ETUC felt, however, that the Commission, in summarising EU Court of Justice case-law, had wrongly interpreted it. “The guidelines … appear to be an over-simplification, overlooking the specificities of the various cases, taking no account of the great diversity of national labour market regulation and industrial relations systems, and paying insufficient attention to the legal obligation of Member States to use effective instruments - adapted to their circumstances - to enforce the Posting Directive and provide workers with protection,” says the ETUC. It strongly counselled the European Institutions and Member States “not to confuse legitimate claims to administrative transparency and simplification with questioning the validity of requirements that - in the framework of complex regulatory systems that exist at national level - are necessary to properly monitor and enforce the Posting Directive”. The ETUC felt that not only was this communication an assessment of the implementation of directive 96/71//EC, it was also a document which had a legal value, in that the European Court of Justice would be able to use it later in giving its decisions.