52000AC1003

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

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.

1.3. The purpose of the proposal is to undertake official 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.

2. General comments

2.1. The Economic and Social Committee welcomes the proposal by the Commission.

2.2. It agrees that Community law must be made more 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.

2.4. The ESC therefore takes a positive view of the proposal 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.

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

Brussels, 20 September 2000.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli

(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).