EC is still battling over 40-hour week
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• by Keith Nuttal The European Commission is trying to break the stalemate over proposals to include setfemployed drivers in the 48-hour working week.
Brussels now proposes that owner-drivers should be given a temporary exemption from the working time directive, although it has not specified for how long.
It hopes to solve the dispute at the EL Council of Ministers between countries favouring universal regulation—such as Germany—and those preferring a "tiered" approach—such as Britain.
There is cause for optimism that a compromise will be reached because France assumes the presidency of the EU in July and it has promised to make agreement over road transport working hours atop priority.
The initiative published by Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio includes other ideas designed to reassure politicians seeking tighter road safety regulations; this might make them more inclined to compromise over working time.
These ideas include a bid to stop hauliers hiring eastern European drivers on the cheap. The EC proposes that all freight employees should be subject to the rules of the EU state where their employer is established—regardless of whether they are EU citizens. This would ensure that all drivers working for EU companies were paid an EU minimum wage.
The EC also wants to raise the number of compulsory checks that are made on tachographs beyond the current 1% when new electronic machines are introduced in 2002. But once again the EC has declined to come up with a specific figure.