EU: Social partners react to failure of working time conciliation

Trade unions and employers' organisations have responded very differently to the failure in late April 2009 by the EU institutions to reach an agreement on the revision of the Working Time Directive.

Five years after the European Commission first proposed a Directive amending the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC), efforts to reach an agreement on the subject between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU finally failed on 27 April 2009.