Member states will attempt to conclude political agreements on two important pieces of draft legislation during the Employment, Social Policy and Health Council, on 30 November and 1 December. The first draft aims to improve the social protection of self-employed workers and their assisting spouses (such as farmers’ wives). Sources say chances are high that the Council will succeed in producing an agreement, although the UK and Germany still do not agree with the final text. The other potential EU law concerns patients’ rights in cross-border health care. Here, two “outstanding issues” are yet to be solved by the ministers as agreement could not be found at lower EU levels.

Furthermore, the Council is expected to agree on a directive implementing the social partners’ recently revised framework agreement on parental leave. The document extends workers’ individual right to parental leave from three to four months for each parent, of which at least one month should be strictly non-transferable. Since the framework rests on the social partners’ EU-level agreement, the Council cannot but accept or reject the whole package (ie it has no right to make changes to it). Sources say the text will be accepted without problems.

A draft directive aiming to improve the social protection of self-employed workers and so-called ‘assisting spouses’ will then be taken up by the ministers. The European Commission has proposed this directive to grant self-employed women the right to maternity leave and to improve the vulnerable social position of ‘assisting spouses’. Further discussions are foreseen on maternity benefits and on the directive’s legal basis, but sources say that there is a qualified majority in the Council to secure an agreement on the latest compromise text drafted by the Swedish EU Presidency. The Commission had proposed to set maternity leave at 14 weeks for this group of workers, but several member states would prefer to set this duration - and the associated financial aspects - individually. The procedure is co-decision. The European Parliament adopted its first-reading opinion on 6 May this year.

CHOICE OF PROVIDERS

According to Stockholm, the major political issue still outstanding regarding cross-border health care is the choice of providers to be covered by the directive. Certain member states, among them Spain, Portugal and Italy, would like to exclude non-contractual health care providers from the scope of the directive, since this, in their view, would give rise to “reverse discrimination” because treatment at such providers is not reimbursed at national level while they would have to reimburse it in cross-border situations. Other member states, mainly the Nordic ones, are of the view that this would contradict case law, under which private providers cannot be excluded simply on the grounds that they are private. Another issue that remains to be settled concerns cross-border health care coverage for pensioners.

The Swedish Presidency will “inform” the Council on the state of play in negotiations on two parts of the so-called ‘pharmaceutical package’: the prevention of counterfeit medicines from entering the supply chain of medicinal products and the strengthening and rationalising of the current pharmacovigilance system. One part of the package - on ‘information to patients’ - has been put on the back burner by the Council, which did not agree with the Commission’s proposal. Nevertheless, the Council says that it is “waiting for the EP to give its opinion before we continue negotiations”.