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 the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses (codified version)'
Date: 2000-09-20
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: approximation of laws, codification of EU law, labour law, transfer of businesses, worker consultation, worker information

20.12.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 367/21

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 the safeguarding of employees’ rights
in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses
(codified version)’

(2000/C 367/06)

On 23 June 2000 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 94
of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship, which was responsible for preparing the
Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 12 September 2000. The rapporteur was
Mr Liverani.

At its 375th plenary session (meeting of 20 September 2000), the Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion by 104 votes to 0 with 6 abstentions.

1.

Introduction

2. General comments

1.1.
Legislative codification is one of the objectives that the
Commission has set itself in the context of a people’s Europe,
with a view to making Community law clearer and more
accessible to the ordinary citizen.

1.2.
The Presidency Conclusions of the Edinburgh European
Council confirmed this objective, stressing the importance of
legislative codification as it offers certainty as to the law
applicable to a given matter at a given time.

The purpose of the proposal is to undertake official

1.3.
codification of this type.

1.4.
The new directive will supersede the various directives
incorporated in it, on which the Committee issued opinions at
the appropriate time (1); their content is fully preserved, and
they are brought together with only such formal amendments
as are required by the codification exercise itself.

The Economic and Social Committee welcomes the

2.1.
proposal by the Commission.

It agrees that Community law must be made more

2.2.
accessible and clearer to citizens.

2.3.
Greater clarity and transparency of Community law
will make it easier to interpret properly, and will help ensure
the necessary legal certainty.

The ESC therefore takes a positive view of the proposal

2.4.
for the codification of Council Directive 77/187/EEC.

2.5.
The codification concerns a number of formal aspects
of the texts only, with no implications for their content which
remains unchanged.

(1) Council Directive 77/187/EEC (OJ L 61, 5.3.1977, p. 26); ESC
Opinion of 23.4.1975 (OJ C 255, 7.11.1975, p.25); Council
Directive 98/50/EC (OJ L 201, 17.7.1998, p. 88); ESC Opinion of
29.3.1995 (OJ C 133, 31.5.1995, p. 13).

The Committee hopes that in the event of subsequent and
repeated proceedings before the Court of
the
the Commission will make any
European Communities,
necessary amendments to the directive.

Justice of

Brussels, 20 September 2000.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice RANGONI MACHIAVELLI