Commissioner Timmermans: Towards better regulation and employee protection
Frans Timmermans. Picture: European Parliament / Fred Marvaux
Regulation is a hot topic in both Finnish and international politics. We asked European Commissioner for Better Regulation Frans Timmermans to tell us four things that are important in EU-level regulation.
Improvement. By improving regulation, we want to ensure that the regulation is better, not necessarily that the regulation is removed completely. For example, we have listened to EU member states in that they absolutely do not want to reduce environmental regulation, they just want to make it more efficient.
Review. Together with EU members states and stakeholder groups, the European Commission has established the Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) Platform, which convenes at regular intervals to discuss how EU legislation could be improved. The Platform can make recommendations which take proposals from citizens and stakeholder groups into account, for example regarding which laws should be reviewed.
Labour protection. Labour regulation exists to protect employees. With EU regulation, we can ensure that employers cannot assign employees to duties that are hazardous to their health. This prevents an unhealthy competition dynamic in which different member states would have different rules.
Security. Flexibility sounded like a positive thing for many years, but nobody stays young forever. As people age, they start to yearn for more stable employment. I hope that during the next term after this May’s European Parliament elections, we will take steps to improve the quality of employment, among other things.
In Finland, the European Parliament elections will be held on 26 May 2019. For Europeans currently living in their home countries, advance voting takes place between 15 and 21 May, and for those living in other countries, between 15 and 18 May.
Who?
Politican Frans Timmermans is a member of the Dutch Labour party. Since year 2014 he has been working for better regulations, enhancing the relations between institutional bodies, the principles of a community governed by law as well as for the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as a responsible European Commissioner.
Timmermans has studied among other French and litterature. He is married with four children. He is a candidate for the European Parliament's socialict and democratic group in the election of the next President of the European Commission.