Victory for freelancers on EU agency rules

Freelancer group, the Professional Contractors Group (PCG), has welcomed the decision by the EU Employment Council meeting to shelve the Green Paper on Labour Law, which it claimed would have threatened freelancers' right to work.

This follows a vigorous campaign by small business groups and their big business counterpart, the CBI, who objected to the move to give similar employment rights to agency workers as those to employees. At one stage the UK seemed to be isolated in its opposition to the union-driven Directive, but at the eleventh hour, the proposals were shelved until next year. PCG's managing director John Brazier said: "We're pleased that the Green Paper on Labour Law is not being taken forward, and that no measure will be proposed to threaten the right of freelancers in the UK to work as they wish to.

"We have worked hard on this issue with the FSB, IoD and BCC to warn of the dangers of such a measure; it is good news that this meeting confirmed that no new laws will be proposed.

"Although it would not directly affect freelancers, it simply reinforces the notion that there are only employees and employers, and denies the existence of millions of freelance professionals across Europe."

Proposals arising from the Green Paper could have meant:

• employment rights being imposed on all "atypical workers" whether employees or not, which would destroy the freelance working model
  
• employment law being decided by the EU, not the UK
  
• official EU-wide definitions of "workers" and "employees" which would have denied the very existence of freelancers.