As indicated in the last News-Bulletin, 3 EU Member States (Italy, Greece, Luxembourg) did not meet the deadline for transposition (5 June 2011) of the EWC recast directive 2009/38/EC. Since then, in Italy the original Joint Opinion of Social Partners (signed 12 April 2011) was accepted by the Italian government and turned into law and entered into force on 11 August 2012 (Legislative Decree No. 113 of 2012). In Greece the original proposal for a bill was successfully modified after long and intensive efforts on the part of the Greek trade unions and adopted as the Presidential Decree. In Luxembourg the original bill was submitted to Parliament for adoption and the State Council (Conseil d’Etat) has given its opinion.

The bill was declined based on criticism that the rules on professional training of employee representatives were simply copied from the Directive and should be substantiated. An amendment prepared by the government modified the bill by referring to the rules on entitlement to professional training, which are applicable to employee delegates.