Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the main aim of my report is to examine two articles of Council Directive 93/104/EC on certain aspects of the organisation of working time. This important directive was approved ten years ago in order to regulate certain factors which are essential to the health and safety of salaried workers, such as daily rest periods and holidays. The directive also indicates the maximum weekly working time of 48 hours, although it allows it to be calculated as an average over a reference period of four months. The approval of this important directive – which is one of the most important in Community social legislation – was not a straightforward process. The resistance of the United Kingdom was only overcome by the Court of Justice and, for ten years, we had to have two temporary exceptions with regard to the reference period for calculation of the 48 weekly hours, and with regard to the application of the 48 hours weekly working time in those countries that want to implement this exception if the workers wish, provided that this wish is expressed freely and reliably: this is what is known as individual opting-out. The Commission and the Council should have re-examined these temporary exceptions before 26 November last year. Regrettably, however, the Commission did not communicate its analyses or proposals by that date. Up until 30 December 2003 it did not present us with any Communication nor open up a consultation period, and furthermore its text lacks specific proposals on the trickiest issues. What the Commission has done – and we should thank it – has been to commission a study by the University of Cambridge – carried out by Barnard, Deakin and Hobbs – on the way opting-out has been used in the country which approved it, in other words, the United Kingdom. This report provides us with in-depth knowledge of the negative consequences of its widespread use and abuse in a labour market in which it has been applied in a generalised manner. My report refers exclusively to the re-examination of these two exceptions in order to respond not with waffle, but with clarity, to the question the Directive obliges us to ask: 10 years after its adoption, does it make sense to maintain the extension of the reference periods? Does it make sense to maintain the principle that it is possible not to apply the maximum 48 hours by means of individual opting out? I say in my report that both questions must be answered in light of the principles which governed the adoption of the Directive: the health and safety of workers. These must be accompanied by a third: flexibility, as indicated by the Commission in its communication. We must ensure that the professional and family lives of Europeans are reconciled. My proposals are also clear. According to our objective information, there is no reason to abrogate the extension of the reference periods which have proven to be useful and have not, at least for the moment, had serious consequences for the health and safety of workers, but on the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that opting-out seriously jeopardises minimum health and safety rights, and seriously jeopardises the reconciliation of family and professional life. The debate and the vote within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have been very tough. I hope that tomorrow we can continue working and bringing positions closer together. I personally have maintained an open attitude to the element of flexibility, also with regard to the problem of the duty hours of doctors which has been introduced into this debate. I have been flexible, just as the Directive is flexible. Now, I have always stated, and I will do so until the end, that individual opting-out sets extremely dangerous precedents: minimum rights, Mr President, are inalienable. If today workers are being obliged or allowed to surrender basic rights, such as maximum hours, tomorrow, on the basis of the same argument, they could be allowed to surrender other essential elements of their health and safety, to work in environments in which they suffer noise, dust, the removal of protective barriers at work sites, to surrender maternity rights and many other things. And all in the name of individual freedom, which disappears when it is applied. It is a horrendous precedent. I will end, Mr President, by saying that our Charter of Fundamental Rights and Article 137 of the Treaty oblige us to resist the wishes of those who do not want European rules. Opting-out is not a flexible rule: it is the absence of rules. By allowing basic minimum rights legislation not to be applied to someone, we would be advocating the absence of rules. I hope that all Members of this House will give this full consideration. We cannot offer victory to people who do not want the social Europe to be built, to those allergic to minimum rules, which workers on our continent have enjoyed for more than a century.

Political group: PSE