“The failure of negotiations in the conciliatory committee assigns to the working time directive a new record: having being able to make such a procedure collapse for the first
time since it was installed by the Treaty of Amsterdam”, said Ralf Resch, General Secretary of CEEP.

This has to be added to the many negative points already scored by this political file since the SIMAP and Jaeger rulings, according to which on call time should be regarded as working time.

“We urge the Commission to find a new solution finally taking into account the constraints of services around the clock by making a clear reference to the inactive on call time category. Indeed, only the ability not to count the inactive part of on call time as working time can guarantee the effective provision of key SGIs all over Europe” said Ralf Resch.

In the meanwhile, CEEP will be obliged to keep delivering its members the same message of the past years. Namely, “As clarity to the uncertainties brought by these ECJ rulings is not provided by the EU legislator, you will have to keep bringing clarity yourself”.

For further information, please contact:
Hafida Benyacoub, Communications Officer -
tel. +32 (0) 2 219 27 98
CEEP gathers enterprises and organisations from across Europe, both public and private, at national, regional and local level, which are public employers or providers of services of general interest. CEEP members employ a quarter of the EU workforce; CEEP is one of the three European Social Partners.