Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-04-Speech-1-141"
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"en.20090504.19.1-141"2
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"Madam President, Directive 2002/15/ΕC really did need revising and, following a report which it was obliged to present, the European Commission tabled suitable amendments to help this industry, in order to safeguard the health and safety of its workers and, at the same time, to facilitate healthy competition. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs accepted the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, despite my recommendation, rejected the Commission proposal; in other words, it did not agree to exempt self-employed drivers from the scope of the directive. I must point out that the 2002 directive made provision for self-employed drivers to be included as of 23 March 2009. Developments are not as they appear in the wake of the impressions and excitement caused by the debate on a directive on road transport.
As far as driving times and rest periods are concerned, there have been significant developments since 2002, because Regulation (EC) No 561/2006, which entered into force in 2007, applies to all lorry drivers and ensures they have suitable driving times and rest periods.
Therefore, to include self-employed drivers in a directive on working time would be to misunderstand the concept of self-employment, because when someone is self-employed, they set their own working time. This would therefore be a serious, harmful action against small and medium-sized enterprises, it would restrict entrepreneurial freedom and we would be helping to create additional administrative burdens. This would set a precedent for starting a debate on the integration of self-employed persons in other sectors, thereby limiting their ability to work as long as they like. This leaves a serious problem: who is self-employed and who is a ‘false’ self-employed person? It is clear that certain workers claim to be self-employed but are not. The European Commission had proposed that we lay down criteria so that we can distinguish ‘false’ self-employed persons. However, this would not be possible, because controls are still carried out nationally. If, therefore, European legislation stipulated who was a ‘false’ self-employed person and who was not, this could not be made visible from national controls. Thus we have the facility now, with our new proposals, to determine at Member-State level who will and who will not be included in the directive on persons performing mobile road transport activities. We also call on the European Commission in our proposals to re-determine the results of the application of the directive. I call on my fellow Members to reject the amendment which aims to refer the proposal back to committee and to support my group’s proposals, which are also supported by the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and the Independence and Democracy Group."@en1
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