The "Services" and "Posted Workers" Directives

3.1. SERVICES DIRECTIVE In the CECOPNEWS n°2006/6 of Wednesday 14 June, we explained you that the European Council had come to an political agreement on May 29, 2006 concerning the latest version of the Services Directive, which was a compromise between the text elaborated in first reading by the European Parliament (February 16, 2006) and the one proposed by the Commission (April 4, 2006).

On July 24, the Council formally approved this latest version, sending the issue back to the European Parliament for a second reading. In this context, Mrs. Evelyne Gebhardt (ESP), rapporteur on the Directive to the European Parliament, presented a calendar to the members of the Internal Market Commission (IMCO) of the Parliament:
- September 13, 2006-presentation of the project by the rapporteur and first debate on the text
- October 23, 2006-vote on the report in an extraordinary meeting of IMCO in Strasbourg - November Session (November 13-16, 2006) vote in plenary.

The rappoteur announced that it wanted to present, in a second reading, 11 amendments related to labour law, social services, consumer protection, administrative cooperation between member states and the "clause of re-examination of the Directive3. We will therefore need to analyse closely the text that will be proposed on September 13, maybe calling for a reaction on our part. We will come back to it in the next issue of CECOPNEWS.

3.2. “POSTED WORKERS” DIRECTIVE In the CECOPNEWS n° 2006/06 and 2006/09 we drew your attention on the working document of the Commission Services dated 04.04 2006 on the implementation of Directive 96/71/CE on the detachment of the workers within the framework of service deliveries, and of the importance of this Directive in the implementation of the future Services Directive.

The CECOP Secretariat proposed to make a first approximate inventory of the situation in each of the member states and future members. A list of legal experts belonging to each of the CECOP member organisations has been established (CLICK HERE). We will soon send a letter to those experts concerning the elaboration of this first inventory.