Social affairs ministers had an ambitious agenda at their 5-6 December meeting in Brussels with the Portuguese Presidency crafting several agreements on the working time directive, temporary work, flexicurity and supplementary pension rights.
But the agreement had to be delayed when Gordon Brown, faced with a defeat on temporary workers' rights, linked the issue to the Lisbon Treaty to be signed in the Portuguese capital on 13 December.
"The Council agreed that the best option at this moment was to postpone a decision, in order to further pursue the dialogue," the Portuguese Presidency said in a statement. It nevertheless "noted that a vast majority of member states had spoken in favour of an integrated solution" between the temporary work and working time directives and that there was "a real margin for political decision in 2008."
Concerns over the UK position with respect to agency work were well-known: According to the UK, temporary work is an integral element of the country's flexible market policy. If agency workers were treated equally to their permanently employed counterparts, the government argued, this instrument would become less useful.
It turned out, however, that there was a clear majority of member states in favour of the agency workers directive and that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was not going to be able to find sufficient allies to block the proposal in the Council.
