A directive on posted workers abroad should be approved by Ministers of the EU Council in October, with two months remaining for Slovakia to find a compromise to the directive to the benefit of posted workers from Central European countries working in Western Europe. "We have to look at the truth directly in the eyes, that we will no longer be able to block the directive. We can be overruled," said State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs Ivan Korčok. As he explained, Slovakia, together with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, is seeking to exempt the transport sector from the Directive but also that the directive would be introduced no sooner than in two years' time.
"The V4 countries say that the transport sector, for example, should be excluded from the scope of the directive. Here we are with France, which promotes the directive, on the opposite pole, and here on this opposite pole we will stay, even after the meeting of Prime Minister Robert Fico with the French President Emmanuel Macron," continued Korčok.
France has been a staunch supporter of the Directive, proposing changes in June 2017 which slowed the adoption of the rules. One of the recent demands by France is a halving of the legal time limit of how long posted workers can remain abroad and yet still pay their social contributions in their home countries, often at lower rates than in Western European countries.
