New directive not complete without hefty sanctions

On 30 June Cremers will discuss with Dutch interested parties how to best use the opportunities of the new directive. What he is above all curious about is how the Dutch legislator will act against companies that disregard the directive. 'I’ve ensured that the new text included a formulation that is also in many other directives: that member states must provide sanctions which are effective, dissuasive and proportionate. That is pretty strong, but not without reason. The new directive offers opportunities for progress in companies that comply with the European regulations. But there are still a lot of companies that do not.'

There are two other improvements that Cremers takes the credit for. Firstly he ensured that the new directive applies to more decisions than before. 'Transnationality' only requires a decision to have consequences for employees in one other member state, even if there are only few of them. If that is the case, the company must inform its European Works Council and consult it. Cremers also ensured that the employees of organisations in small countries will be represented more often in a European Works Council. Other improvements, such as for example powers and facilities, he attributes to above all the European trades unions. It was not self-evident that the Parliament managed to add improvements. After consulting with the European partners in 2007/2008, the European Commission did not want any further changes made whatsoever. To achieve this, it opted for 'recasting’ instead of 'revision'. A recasting is a procedure in which the Parliament only has the right to amend the changed parts of a legal text. Cremers: 'Even the French, who were president of the EU when the Directive went to the Parliament, found new discussions difficult. They were in a hurry to round it off within their presidency. Pressure was put on me, also by the ETUC: action by me could unsettle changes.’ Cremers was not stopped by this. He took the proposals of Commissioner Špidla, compared them to 45 court judgements and noted down what was missing in the proposals. He came to a total of 11 amendments. Cremers had soon convinced his own party. 'Otherwise I would have been a Don Quichot’, he says. 'Luckily people see that as Social Democrats it is precisely with this kind of thing that we can make a difference.'

But he also managed to get his Christian Democrat colleagues on side, so that their own spokesman, a British Tory, came off second-best. Cremers became the 'rapporteur' in his stead, that is to say the man who negotiates with the Council of Ministers on behalf of the Parliament. Formally, as a member of the second-largest parliamentary party he could only be a shadow rapporteur. But in practice he was the one who got a telephone call in the evening at home from a French minister to do business. Cremers does not attribute the success primarily to French lenience. He thinks that above all that he started something in socially thinking Democrats. 'As a result of my years of experience in the European trades unions I was able to remind them that the Commission’s proposal was lacking in positions they themselves had put forward in 2002. In addition, there was the irritation amongst an ever increasing number of MEPs at the Commission’s formal trick. Suddenly they were by my side and supported all my amendments.'