Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-10-Speech-2-046"
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"en.20050510.4.2-046"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, this text, naturally, does not aim to standardise working conditions in the Union, which would today neither be desirable nor possible, but it seeks rather to implement common foundations for the protection of employees. The more beneficial social systems, like the French labour law, are therefore not challenged and will remain enforceable. This point is essential, you suspect, in the context of the debate on the Constitution in France and in view of concerns raised by the drafting of European rules in the social field.
The stakes are nonetheless important. For us, ladies and gentlemen, it is a question of sending a clear signal as regards the social system that we hope to promote at European level. The ambitious objectives of the Lisbon Strategy make it necessary to adapt the European economy to new challenges. It is obvious that businesses should benefit from a dose of flexibility in the management of working time, but we sincerely believe that greater flexibility is not contradictory with a high level of workers’ health and safety. The balance between flexibility in the management of time and the safety of workers enforces the definition of minimum regulations and safeguards as well as suitable controls.
The debate surrounding the opt-out is thus of particular importance in this context. The option for an employer to contravene the legal limit of a 48-hour working week with the individual agreement of workers is, for us, clearly at odds with the spirit of the directive. I should like to point out that Parliament, during its examination of the 2004 report, was against keeping the individual opt-out agreement. Whilst we have hoped for the progressive abolition of the individual opt-out in a text that does not lean towards standardisation, however, we have given our support to keeping an opt-out option that would be managed by negotiation and collective conventions, in accordance with national customs. With regard to the reference periods, we agree with the rapporteur and the Commission on allowing an extension of not more than 12 months. This corresponds to the requirement for flexibility from the business community, which must naturally be able to deal with fluctuations in demand.
Finally, we remain convinced that all instances of on-call time must be considered working time. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs nevertheless proposes that Member States may authorise the calculation of the inactive parts of on-call time in a specific manner in order to comply with the maximum weekly working time. We endorse this provision that once again takes account of national customs in this field."@en1
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