Failure of Greece to transpose the Working Time Directive for inland waterway transport into national legislation - infringement: INFR(2023)2138

The European Commission, in the context of an infringement procedure, has sent a letter of formal notice to Greece, requesting the country to transpose into national law Directive 2014/112/EU on working time in inland waterway transport.

Each Member State of the European Union must fully apply EU law. The body responsible for identifying possible violations of EU law is the European Commission. Where a Member State does not apply EU law and breaches its obligations under the EU Treaties, the European Commission may open a formal infringement procedure under Articles 258 and 260 TFEU (see details on the infringement procedure here).

Directive 2014/112/EU implements the European Agreement concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time in inland waterway transport, and seeks to contribute to a coherent legal framework for the organisation of working time. It aims to protect the health and safety of workers in a sector with a predominantly cross-border activity.

As mentioned in the November infringements package, the rules of the above Directive implement an agreement of the social partners regulating certain aspects of working time for workers employed on board ships in the inland waterway transport sector. In particular, the social partners’ agreement regulates the duration of daily and weekly working time, rest periods, breaks, maximum working time at night and annual leave. Irrespective of whether a Member State has inland waterways in its territory, the Commission considers that uniform transposition of the Directive into national law by all Member States is necessary to ensure that the individual employment contracts of mobile workers on board ships operating in the territory of the Union fully comply with the provisions of the Directive. The European Commission has considered that Greece is among the countries which have not transposed the above-mentioned directive and has therefore decided to initiate infringement proceedings by sending a letter of formal notice to Greece.

More information about this procedure and the European Commission’s decisions on the infringement in question can be found on the European Commission’s website by entering INFR(2023)2138 in the “Infringement case number” field.

Where is the problem with the rule of law?

The application of EU law is an obligation of the Member States of the European Union. If infringements of EU law are identified, the European Commission may take a series of actions against the Member State concerned to ensure the correct and full application of EU law by opening infringement proceedings under Articles 258 and 260 TFEU.

In this case, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Greece, calling on the country to incorporate Directive 2014/112/EU on working time in inland waterway transport into its national legislation.

Nefeli Lappa

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Failure of Greece to transpose the Working Time Directive for inland waterway transport into national legislation – infringement: INFR(2023)2138

The European Commission, in the context of an infringement procedure, has sent a letter of formal notice to Greece, requesting the country to transpose into national law Directive 2014/112/EU on working time in inland waterway transport.

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