Working Time Directive Update

02-03-2007

EU Ministers have once again failed to agree on the revision of the Working Time Directive, which is under review with the aim to abolish or reduce the use of opt-out in order to achieve a European-wide 48 hour working week.

A compromise proposal was submitted by the Finnish EU Presidency at the end of October, which would have allowed the UK to keep its op-out whilst imposing stricter conditions on its use. The overall ceiling for all workers (including those who have signed the opt-out) would have been reduced to 60 hours per week-down from the current 78 hours.

A significant aspect of the compromise proposal was the inclusion of a new category called "on-call time". Under this proposal, the inactive part of on-call time would not have constituted working time. This went against recent European Court of Justice rulings which had declared that time spent by hospital doctors asleep but on-call should count as working time.

Ministers discussed this proposal but they could not reach an agreement. The UK and the majority of the new EU Member States insisted on keeping the opt-out whilst other Member States e.g. France demanded its abolition.

Legal action is likely to be launched by the European Commission against those Member States failing to incorporate the Court of Justice SiMAP and Jaeger rulings regarding on-call time for the medical profession. Judgements to which the UK argues it already applies. The commission will no doubt disagree and also accuse the UK of making too much use of the opt-out.

EU Ministers have agreed that in order to avoid excessive costs for Member States health systems changes must be made to the rules.

Over the coming months, Member States will have to decide whether to split the Directive (so they can agree on on-call time and leave the issue of opt-out for another day). A further contentious issue is that the definition of on-call time in the compromise text is differed from the definition given by the European Parliament. If the directive was split it is likely to face a difficult journey through the EU decision making process delaying it even more.

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