FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BRUSSELS — The European Commission has launched a infringement proceedings against Italy and 9 other EU countries for failing to correctly transpose the Community Directive on seasonal workers in national law. Brussels sent a letter in Rome of formal notice and now the Italian government has two months to respond.
The Commission had already sent a letter of formal notice to the Italian authorities in July 2019followed by a complementary letter of formal notice in December 2020. Italy had provided explanations on its national rules at the time, but the Commission accepted them unsatisfactory and now follows up the examination with a reasoned opinion.
For the Commission «to ensure full compliance with the seasonal workers directive it is an important prerequisite for attracting the necessary manpower for seasonal work to the EU and possibly also for helping to reduce irregular migration”.
The directive, underlines Brussels, aims to guarantee fair and transparent rules for the admission of seasonal workers from third countries to the EU but also to insure decent living and working conditions, equal rights and sufficient protection from exploitation. In addition to Italy, the infringement procedure has also been initiated against Germania, Belgium, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Cipro, Latvia e Lithuania.
In detail, the Commission has ordered Italy to prevent the abuse of fixed-term contracts and to avoid discriminatory working conditions in the public sector. According to Brussels “the Italian legislation does not prevent or sanction sufficiently the abusive use of a succession of fixed-term contracts for different categories of workers in the public sector”. Among these, «teachers and administrative, technical and auxiliary staff of public schools, health workers, workers in the sector of higher artistic, musical and dance training and in the opera sector, staff of public research institutes, forestry workers and volunteers from the fire brigade national fire”.
Some of these workers, the Commission points out, also have less favorable working conditions than permanent workers, a situation which constitutes discrimination and contravenes EU law. The Commission has decided to open an infringement procedure against Italy by sending letters of formal notice also for the incorrect transposition of the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive and for the incorrect implementation of the Late Payment Directive as regards the healthcare sector in the Calabria Region.