On April 10 the European Commission launched a consultation document for its first phase consultation of social partners on a “consolidation of the EU Directives on information and consultation of workers”. The Commission is looking for input over the possibility of combining three separate Directives into just one. The three Directives under consideration treat collective redundancies, transfers of undertakings, and information & consultation of workers. The reason for the consolidation effort is to render the final text fully coherent and cohesive as well as harmonizing information & consultation of workers representatives at national level. According to the EU Treaty the Commission first has to consult the European Social Partners (ETUC for the trade union side and BusinessEurope, CEEP, and UEAPME for the employer side) before undertaking any social initiatives.
The three Directives in question are: Directives 98/59 on collective redundancies, 2001/23 on transfers of undertakings, and 2002/14 on a general framework relating to information and consultation of workers. They each contain provisions concerning information & consultation of workers representatives over certain subjects or when certain events occur, and at the national level. For some time now the Commission has flirted with the idea of ‘systemizing’ these texts and harmonizing their definitions of information & consultation.
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