According to the ETUC, the increased cross-border mobility of workers, companies and agencies, signalling a Europeanisation of labour markets, demands minimum rules to ensure fair competition and protection of workers. However, the UK is leading a diminishing group of Member States in opposition, claiming that the proposals by the Portuguese presidency would harm the flexibility of its labour markets and cost jobs.

Said ETUC General Secretary John Monks: “We are getting fed up with the UK business refrain being echoed uncritically by the UK government. There is no evidence whatsoever to back this scaremongering. The threat of job losses when the minimum wage was introduced in the UK never materialised, but they’re up to it again. How is it possible that other EU countries can do well in terms of economic growth and low unemployment without working time opt-outs, and with rules on equal treatment of agency workers in force? Does the UK really claim that its businesses need a competitive advantage based on long, unhealthy and unsocial working hours and bad working conditions for migrant temps? And how come Germany, which already has recent regulation on equal treatment for temps in place, is supporting this position?”

John Monks said it was a positive sign that a strong majority of the 27 EU Member States was convinced of the urgency of finding solutions for both issues. For the ETUC, such solutions should not horse-trade the protection of the health and safety of all workers in terms of working time against the protection of temporary agency workers, and both issues should be resolved in a sustainable way. The ETUC will be pressing for such an outcome in the course of 2008 when, according to the Council’s conclusions, the issues will be on the agenda again.