ETUC presents priorities to Tony Blair: Act on Working Time

The ETUC General Secretary John Monks meets Tony Blair, the current EU president, to present the ETUC's priorities. ETUC criticises the UK government for blocking progress on advancing social Europe and argues that a major debate on social European is appropriate only if the right framework is established for such a debate, including an approach which integrates social, economic and environmental concerns. The ETUC argues for early action on the Working Time Directive respecting the position of the European Parliament, the Temporary Agency Workers Directive and a Services Directive based on the following three principles:
- exclusion of collective agreements and the labour standards
- exclusion of services of general interest and a separate framework directive in this area
- enforcement rights: the country of destination and no undue reliance on the country of origin principle.

ETUC also argues to implement gender mainstreaming to all policy fields, and start a genuine process of gender proofing in all stages of policy making.

ETUC also addresses REACH (Chemicals), Better regulation agenda, Sustainable development and Trade and External Relations. To read more:
http://www.etuc.org/a/1410