EU looks at threat of cheap non-EU driver
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• The employment practices of Willi Betz and many other European Union hauliers are to be scrutinised next month when officials from the EU's 15 member states meet to discuss the Problem of EU operators employing non-EU drivers.
The meeting will discuss how many companies are legally exploiting cross-border legal ;oopholes, while others are flouting national work-permit rules by using non-EU labour within the EU.
The Brussels meeting is seen as a step towards EU harmonisation on work permit legislation: this would help stop Eastern European drivers living and working in their EU employers' cabs for subsistence wages.
Harmonisation would prohibit EU hauliers from employing their own nationals and then switching to eastern European drivers as they move out of the company's home country. EU operators from Denmark to .Greece have become increasngly concerned by the way work is being snatched from them by these practices. The French government r joined the UK and ' Netherlands in voicing its o cerns over this issue, and qu bons have been asked in 1 German Bundestag.
German MP Angelika G aims to rally support for char within the EU parliament folk ing a check last summer in wh 48 EU trucks were found to driven by Eastern Europeans.
German law allows nondrivers working for Gem firms to operate domestim only if they have work perm "We need harmonised work p mit rules and better enfori ment," says Graf. "This will riv it harder for these employ( and better for drivers too."