Anne Van Lancker (PSE). – (NL) Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that I wish, first of all, to extend warm thanks to Mrs Gebhardt and all those of my fellow Members with whom I have worked on this directive for so many months, because thanks to this cooperation, and thanks also, of course, to the mobilisation by the trade unions and NGOs, we now have before us a Services Directive in which labour law, collective labour agreements, social rights and consumer rights are fully respected. We should be pleased with this outcome.

I am also pleased that quite a number of sensitive areas, namely social services, health services and temping agencies, do not fall within the scope of this directive because they, of course, need stricter rules if they are not simply to be at the mercy of the free provision of services. I am grateful for the fact that Parliament has closely followed the Council’s common position in this.

Those Members who have said that there are a number of ambiguities in the Council’s common position are, of course, right, Mr President-in-Office, and along with a few fellow Members, I would have wanted to eliminate these by means of a number of amendments. I still believe that our job as legislator is about producing clear, intelligible legal texts that are not open to interpretation. The content of these texts, seeing as it touches upon subjects such as the autonomy of labour law and the definition of excluded social services, is not unimportant, and I share the rapporteur’s sense of regret that there was no willingness at all on the part of the Council to put this right with amendments.

Whilst I do believe that the legal meaning of the Commission’s interpretation is limited, I am very grateful to the Commission for its interpretation nevertheless, because I think, Commissioner, that the interpretation has a very strong political meaning – one of commitment by the Commission, about which my fellow Members and I are sure to remind this Commission and its successors. It is up to us, therefore, to provide more legal certainty for social and health services in future legislation.