WRITTEN QUESTION E-0872/01 by Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. European works councils.
Date: 2001-03-22
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: European Works Council, European undertaking, France, application of EU law, competence of the Member States, national implementing measure, union representative, workers' representation

4.12.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 340 E/111

In view of the aforementioned facts, what procedures does the Commission have in place to ensure the
real-time monitoring of imports of potatoes and other products which arrive from third countries on given
dates and enjoy tariff exemption under preferential agreements?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(7 June 2001)

As indicated by the Honourable Member, the Association Agreement between the Community and the
Kingdom of Morocco provides in its Protocol 1 for import into the Community of new potatoes
originating from Morocco from 1 December to 30 April with exemption of customs duties. This tariff
concession applies within the limit of a tariff quota of 120 000 tonnes.

Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 747/2001 of 9 April 2001 (1) providing for the management of
Community tariff quotas and of reference quantities for products eligible for preferences by virtue of
agreements with certain Mediterranean countries and repealing Council Regulations (EC) No 1981/94 (2)
and (EC) No 934/95 (3) provides that this tariff quota is to be managed by the Commission following the
chronological order of dates of acceptance of customs declarations. This system of management of tariff
quotas is defined within Articles 308a to 308c of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2454/93 laying down
provisions for the implementation of the Community Customs Code.

According to these provisions, Member States communicate to the Commission all valid requests to benefit
from a tariff quota, taking into account the data from each to the customs presented declaration for release
for free circulation. To the extent that the balance of the relevant tariff quota so permits, the Commission
grants an allocation of the requested quantity. Priority is established in accordance with the chronological
order of dates of acceptance of declarations for release for free circulation. If the quantities requested for
drawing from a tariff quota are greater than the balance available, the allocation is made on a pro rata basis
with respect to the requested quantities. So, the Commission ensures that the initial volume of the tariff
quota is not exceeded.

With a view to greater transparency, the Commission(cid:146)s database for management of tariff quotas is, as
a part of the Tariff Data Dissemination System, available on the Europa server of the Commission at the
following address: http://europa.eu.int/comm/taxation_customs/dds/es/home.htm.

It displays the balances of each tariff quota applicable in the present year and in the past two years. This
information is daily updated as a result of the tariff quota allocations which take place every working day.

(1) OJ L 109, 19.4.2001.
(2) Council Regulation No 1981/94 of 25 July 1994 opening and providing for the administration of Community tariff
quotas for certain products originating in Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Malta, Morocco, the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip, Tunisia and Turkey, and providing detailed rules for extending and adapting these tariff quotas
(OJ L 199, 2.8.1994).

(3) Council Regulation (EC) No 934/95 of 10 April 1995 establishing a Community statistical surveillance in the
framework of reference quantities for a certain number of products originating in Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Israel,
Tunisia, Syria, Malta, Morocco and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (OJ L 96, 28.4.1995).

(2001/C 340 E/128)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0872/01

by Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(22 March 2001)

Subject: European works councils

On 17 May 1996 the Samu Auchan group, which is based in France, has operations in Spain, Italy,
Luxembourg, and Portugal, and employs some 37 000 people, concluded an agreement with a number of
French trade unions with a view to drawing up the (cid:145)Auchan European Works Council Agreement(cid:146), which
was deposited with the Lannoy Industrial Tribunal (conseil des prud(cid:146)hommes) on 28 May 1996.

C 340 E/112

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

4.12.2001

Under this agreement, which the group management sent to the employees, employee representatives from
the different countries have been invited to serve on the European Works Council.

Point 2.2 of the agreement stipulates that the members of the council must be appointed by the most
representative staff organisation in each company (or the central works council, where this exists) in
accordance with procedures to be determined by each organisation on the basis of an agreement between
the management and the representatives of the trade unions or the staff representatives, if the company
staff is not unionised. This is the provision which the management has invoked to reject one of the official
representatives of the Portuguese employees and have her replaced by a substitute.

Given that the agreement was laid down solely by French management and employee representatives, does
the Commission consider it right for it to be imposed on companies based in other Member States without
laws and practices governing the appointment or election of employee
observing their national
representatives?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(5 June 2001)

The agreement signed on 17 May 1996 establishing a European Works Council within the Samu Auchan
group has to be considered as a so-called pre-Directive agreement ruled by Article 13 of Council Directive
94/45/EC of 22 September 1994 on the establishment of a European Works Council or a procedure in
Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of undertakings
the purposes of
informing and consulting employees (1).

for

Article 13 of the Directive provides that Community-scale groups of undertakings, which, by the date of
transposition of the Directive, have concluded agreements providing for transnational information and
consultation of employees and covering the entire workforce, shall not be subject to the obligations arising
from the Directive.

The rationale for this provision is, that the Community legislator wished to reserve special treatment and
flexibility for those undertakings and groups of undertakings which had already anticipated the obligations
arising from the Directive and at the same time to maintain the voluntary and consensual approach that is
intended to be the hallmark of its application. This means that no legal rules prevail on what the parties
agreed and that the content of a valid Article 13 agreement cannot be scrutinised other that in relation to
that Article and the relevant national provisions implementing that Article.

Article 13 of Directive 94/45/EC has been implemented into French law by Article 5 of Law No 96-985 of
12 November 1996 on the information and consultation of employees in Community-scale undertakings
and Community-scale groups of undertakings and on development of collective bargaining (2).

Given that the above-mentioned agreement within the Samu Auchan group is ruled by French law and
that France has properly incorporated into its national
law the provisions of the above-mentioned
Directive, the Commission wants to underline, that any issues arising in this area are a matter for the
national industrial relations(cid:146) procedures, and/or the national courts in the first instance.

(1) OJ L 254, 30.9.1994.
(2)

(cid:145)The Community-scale undertakings and groups of undertakings which already have, on the date this law is enacted,
an agreement covering the entire workforce and providing for bodies or for other forms of information, exchange
of views and dialogue at Community level, shall not be subject to the obligations arising from Chapter X of title III
of volume IV of the Labour Code as worded as a result of this law. This shall also be the case where such
agreements run out and the signatory parties decide to renew them. However, the provisions in Article L 439-24 of
the Labour Code in the drafting resulting from this law, shall apply to the groups of undertakings referred to in the
first paragraph, which have established bodies for information, exchange of views and dialogue at Community
level.(cid:146)(unofficial translation).