SOCIAL POLICY : POSTING OF WORKERS: LAST CHANCE MEETING.

After their failure of 15 October, the member states' employment and social affairs ministers will be making another attempt to agree on the draft implementing directive on the posting of workers. They still hope to conclude this matter before the European Parliament elections in May 2014. Failing that, a general approach would send a positive signal to increasingly sceptical European voters on the role of the Union's social dimension.

The text under discussion aims to improve implementation of Directive 96/71/EC on the posting of workers, without altering its provisions. A posted worker is one sent for a limited period of time, in the framework of the provision of services, to carry out his work on the territory of a member state other than the state in which he normally works. Court of Justice rulings and the many cases of fraud that have made headlines in recent years attest to the problems encountered with regulating these work situations.

The aim of the new proposal is to prevent cheap labour from other member states from creating competition with European workers in a given state. For the time being, member states are still divided over two provisions: Article 9 on a list of administrative requirements and monitoring measures and Article 12 on joint and several liability in the subcontracting chain. On the first question, the Commission and the Eastern countries support the idea of a closed list of monitoring measures, while the old states (except for the UK) prefer an open list giving them leeway. On the second question, several member states - such as France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg - support the principle that a direct subcontractor should be held liable for non-payment of a posted worker's salary. But others, including the UK, categorically reject this possibility.

The Lithuanian EU Presidency is currently holding bilateral meetings to try to obtain concessions from the different sides. The meeting on 9 December is expected to start on the basis of a compromise providing for an open list of oversight measures notified to the Commission and monitored by it on an ex post basis, and on voluntary application of the principle of joint and several liability in the subcontracting chain.

The discussions will also be guided by an alternative compromise limiting the principle of mandatory joint liability to the construction sector (which represents one fourth of worker postings at European level) from a given threshold. This text...