Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-290"
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"I believe it was Jacques Delors who said that the internal market for goods and services would never succeed without a strong social dimension. Why did he say that? What he meant was that we must not use poor working conditions, low wages and so on to compete with each other in the internal market. Why not? Because European workers would never accept such a policy. The flexicurity debate also shows that we cannot use low wages and poor working conditions to compete with countries outside the EU. Nor, then, can we adopt a similar approach within the EU.
It is in that perspective that we should view the Posting of Workers Directive. The Posting of Workers Directive has come about with a view to guaranteeing fair and decent working conditions for employees: wage conditions, working times and other working conditions. Minimum rules have been talked about, but if we are to proceed on the basis of the Advocate General’s opinion in the Laval case it is not minimum rules but, rather, normal rules that should apply. That is what the Advocate General goes so far as to say in his opinion. That is important for employees. It is important if they are to have decent conditions, and it is also important for companies. If we had not had these regulations, we should have benefited those companies that pay poor wages and those that have rotten working conditions. There would have been no competition-neutrality - something that is important for both employees and companies.
The Commission has produced an interpretation. I can say that there are parts of it with which we agree, but that there are also parts with which we disagree. Allow me to begin with those parts with which we agree. A better exchange of information is needed between the authorities in the various Member States. Those companies that happen to operate in another country need to be significantly better informed of the conditions in that country. This is an area in which we can do a lot in the future.
The Commission has looked at case law and has sometimes come up with over-interpretations, but sometimes also with correct interpretations. When it comes to third-country citizens, we have no views on the interpretation produced by the Commission, but when it comes to a number of other matters we do not share the Commission’s approach.
Allow me to give two examples. The first concerns the requirement for a representative. In this area the Commission has produced an over-interpretation of the existing conception of justice. The case that exists is about the need to force the representative to be resident in the country in which the activity is taking place. We are not laying down that requirement. That being said, it is important that countries be able to make demands of a representative who is not just anyone but who has a genuine mandate to represent the company. That is important in my country, where we have collective agreements, and it is also important in other countries from the perspective of the authorities and in terms, for example, of the conditions of the working environment. It must be possible to make demands of a representative who has a mandate to speak on behalf of the company.
The next issue is that of social documentation. There are legal cases to which the Commission refers. We are concerned here with Belgium and with the issue of whether documentation should be kept for five years. That is an unreasonable length of time; I can agree about that. However, documentation is needed to show who is employed and working and what wages and working hours they have. Such information is undoubtedly needed during the period that the work is being carried out and also for a reasonable period thereafter. We are, of course, aware that a certain amount of cheating goes on in these matters, so a reasonable period after the work has been carried out is needed.
The mistake made by the Commission is to have over-interpreted in its communication. It has over-interpreted the case law. The requirement for a representative is important, as is the demand for social documentation. The Commission states that we must not challenge any labour market model within Europe. That is an important statement, but that is precisely what is being done when criticism is directed at those Member States that lay down requirements in terms of representatives and social documentation. If it is not permitted to lay down such requirements, it is of course impossible to have a regulated labour market and impossible to maintain our labour market model. It is, then, another model that we are speaking of, and that is something that the Commission should take on board. Germany has put forward precisely the same criticism as the Nordic countries have done.
Finally, I should just like to address the issue of balance. Those countries that do not exercise any control at all should also be criticised. There are countries that do not have sufficient controls in place, which means that employees perhaps work in conditions that do not comply with the requirements of the Posting of Workers Directive. These countries should come in for criticism."@en1
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