In the debate on his report on trans-national collective bargaining concluded between companies working in various places in the EU,  GUE/NGL MEP Thomas Händel explained that the report's aim was to call on the Commission to provide an optional legal framework for cross-border collective bargaining and agreements.

“There has been a tremendous increase in the trans-nationalisation of the management of groups of companies in the past few years, which are now part and parcel of our valued social dialogue,” he said. This is why some legal certainty is needed for the future.

“We have to be sure that these kinds of agreements cannot be impinged on at national level, particularly in terms of working hours and wages,” he stressed, calling on the EPP, ALDE and ECR poltical groups not to take this paragraph out of his report. “If you take this out, we are impinging on being able to negotiate properly,” he warned.

“The agreements should be to the advantage of the people involved in them and should not give rise to taking steps backwards,”  he said before concluding that  the report would be a “tremendous success for social progress in the EU”.