Press Release 07/2009
Brussels, 07 May 2009
No “business as usual” but “Investments for the Future”
On 7 May 2009, CEEP together with the other European Social Partners attended the social
troika meeting in Prague to discuss Europe’s response to the impact of the crisis on jobs and
employment.
Ralf Resch, Secretary General of CEEP noted that everybody else is claiming that it is not
possible to do “business as usual”, but providers of Services of General Interests (SGIs) must
deliver services 24/7. Furthermore, the pressure on public budgets established by those
emergency measures should not lead after the crisis to cuts in public services. Public
spending must be seen as investments for the future.
CEEP’s view as employers of service providers of SGIs is to keep employees in jobs.
Flexibility tools such as the temporary use of short term working are not appropriate for
services that have to function around the clock and cannot adapt the output.
The failure of the negotiations in the Conciliatory Committee on working time, particularly
on the inactive on-call time, will increase the costs for CEEP members in order to ensure the
continuity and quality of services.
Ralf Resch states, “CEEP believes that the European Social Partners have all means to show
the way out of the crisis, even if we regret having failed to present the announced Social
Partners joint declaration on actions to address the crisis, however we consider this failure a
“mild flu” and not a “serious illness” of the European social dialogue.”
CEEP calls on the Council and the Commission to translate the priorities into
recommendations for concrete national and European measures, to be endorsed by the
European June Council and to promptly find a way forward.

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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.