EU: report on the debate on the draft directives on “intra-corporate transfers” and “seasonal workers”

Scope and right to mobility.  Regarding the draft intra-corporate directive (see our dispatch No.  100564), at the Council, some Member States would like to expressly remove workers covered by Directive 96/71 in the posting of workers within the framework of intra-Community services.  Even though the text only targets the direct relation between the company that posts and the employee, they also want to mention that the temporary sector is excluded from the scopes, even if it means expressly excluding these businesses’ permanent workers.  Besides, they expressed concern as to the wording of article 13.4 which allows workers to carry out their assignment on different sites of the group and its customers.  This provision introduces the right to mobility developed in article 16.  They think that it isn’t a problem when the sites are in the same Member State, but it might if the customers and subcontractors are scattered all over Europe.  Italian Parliament rapporteur Salvatore Iacolino, from the EPP, thinks that the right to mobility, “innovative element” in the text, should lead to heated discussions.  Prima facie, he doesn’t mind articles 13.4 and 16 in their current working, but they impose increasing controls.  He thinks the time to deal with the residence requests of family members will also have to be homogenized, so that it won’t be an obstacle to mobility.