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On 20 September, the European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, called on the European Commission to deal as rapidly as possible with a complaint about the European working time directive. The complainant is a German doctor who alleges that the Commission has failed to take action on his complaint that Germany is infringing the directive. The Commission informed him that it had proposed an amendment to the directive in September 2004. The Ombudsman considers that the Commission is not entitled to postpone dealing with the complaint indefinitely on the grounds that the directive may be amended at some time in the future.
In November 2001, a German doctor asked the Commission to open infringement proceedings against Germany. He argued that Germany was in breach of the working time directive, as far as the work of doctors in hospitals and in particular the time spent on call was concerned. In the complainant's view, the overloading of doctors and, as a result, their inability to take the minimum periods of rest they need endangers their own health as well as adequate care for their patients. As the Commission failed to take action, he turned to the Ombudsman.
The Commission argued that changes to the working time directive were under way and added that it would examine the complaint in the light of its proposal and of ongoing discussions with the other EU institutions.
The Ombudsman pointed out that if the Commission were to find that Germany had violated the directive, it would then have discretion as to whether to refer the matter to the Court of Justice. However, nothing in the Commission's opinion suggested that the Commission has reached that stage of its investigation. The Ombudsman therefore called on the Commission to deal with the infringement complaint as rapidly and diligently as possible. The Commission should reply to him by 15 December 2006.
According to the media portal EurActiv.com, Vladimír Špidla, the Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner, responded within a few hours to the Ombudsman recommendation, saying that he was "aware of the difficult situation in which are doctors, nurses, firemen and other professionals working on-call due to the fact that several member states are not in line with ECJ rulings on the Working Time Directive". He said that "almost all member states seem to be in breach of the court rulings" and urged them "to act now". He added that "if ministers cannot agree over the next months, I have no other choice than to take member states to court on this issue".
...back to 28 September 2006
Further information:
Ombudsman calls on Commission to deal with complaint about working time directive
Špidla threatens member states with Court over working time
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