Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Proposal for a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies` (97/C 158/04)

On 27 January 1997, the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 100 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Social, Family, Educational and Cultural Affairs, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 5 March 1997. The rapporteur was Mr Löw.

At its 344th plenary session (meeting of 19 March 1997) the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 92 votes to four with eight abstentions.

1. Content of the draft directive

1.1. The Commission's intention in presenting this proposal for a codified version of the Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies, is to help make Community legislation simple, clear and transparent.

This is the first time a directive dealing with labour or social legislation has been codified. The Commission decided on 1 April 1987 that legislation had to be consolidated or codified by the tenth time it had been amended at the latest. This is a minimum requirement. For the sake of the clarity and transparency of Community legislation, the Commission's departments tend not to wait so long before codifying or consolidating the texts for which they are responsible. This is the case with the present proposal, since the directive on collective redundancies has been amended only once. Another good reason for codifying this legislation is that numerous EU citizens are affected. To this extent the Commission's proposal is important for the building of a Citizens' Europe.

The importance of codification or consolidation was also underlined at the December 1992 European Council in Edinburgh. Here it was stated that the codification or consolidation of legislation that has been amended several times provides 'legal security as to the law which is applicable at a certain moment concerning a specific issue`.

1.2. Apart from Articles 9 and 10 concerning Members States' obligations to notify the Commission and the directive's entry into force, the proposal makes no substantive changes to the codified legislation. The texts of Directives 75/129/EEC and 92/56/EEC have simply been amalgamated.

2. General comments

2.1. The Economic and Social Committee considers the approximation of Member States' laws on collective redundancies to be an important contribution towards the completion of the internal market in the social sector.

It welcomes the proposed codification unreservedly and agrees with the Commission that this helps to make Community law transparent and complete the building of a Citizens' Europe. The Committee would urge the Commission to continue to simplify EU legislation.

The Committee commented on the substance of the approximation exercise in its opinion of 26 June 1973 () on the first proposal for a directive (the subsequent Directive 75/129/EEC) and in its opinion of 30 January 1992 () of the proposal for a directive amending Directive 75/129/EEC (the subsequent Directive 92/56/EEC). Since the substance of the provisions for approximating legislation is not up for discussion, the Committee will not comment again on this matter but would refer to its aforementioned opinions.

Brussels, 19 March 1997.

The President of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS

() OJ No C 100, 22. 11. 1973.

() OJ No C 79, 30. 3. 1992.