Last week, the conciliation committee on working time met for the second time and failed to reach an agreement on a new text for the revised European Working Time Directive. The main points of contention continue to be the future of the opt-out ,and an agreement on on-call time, with neither the Council of Ministers nor the European Parliament willing to give ground on their respective positions.
The Council of Ministers continue to back the common position, agreed in June last year, where the opt-out would be retained and an agreement reached that only the “active” part of on-call time should count as working time. The European Parliament argue that the entire period of on-call time should be counted as working time and also that the opt-out should be phased out over a three-year period.
Following the failure to reach agreement, the Council, Parliament and Commission agreed to hold further, informal, trilogue discussions with the possibility of a final conciliation committee meeting being held towards the end of April. The Council of Ministers stressed, however, that they only agree to this meeting if there is a “realistic chance” of a deal being agreed.
For information, if no deal is agreed by April 28th then the current proposals will fall , and the Commission would then have to submit a new legislative proposal for the process to begin again. For the UK, this situation would mean we are left with the status quo, and the opt-out remains.
If a deal is agreed, then both the European Parliament and Council of Ministers would have to approve the entirely new text and for the Parliament, the last opportunity for this to be completed would be in the week 4th-7th May, the last plenary sitting before the break for European elections.
The MIA and the CBI continue to lobby key MEPs and the government to ensure that the opt-out is retained.
