What are the main points you make in your report on the revision of the EWC directive, which was adopted by the European Economic and Social Committee on 30 May?

In order to form our opinion, we commented on the Commission's objectives and checked whether the measures it proposes actually meet these objectives. Based on this analysis, we made a number of recommendations on what should be changed in the Commission's proposal. For instance, we have proposed incorporating climate change, digitalisation, demographics and skills shortages into the remit of the European Works Councils.

We also suggest establishing a panel of experts comprising representatives of the social partners, Member States and the Commission to assess the effective implementation of the directive, as previously outlined in other directives. Furthermore, we have endorsed a demand from the European trade union movement, to extend the directive to companies operating under a licensing or franchising system.

With regard to the future of existing European Works Council agreements, we have attempted to find common ground with the employers, but were unable to do so due to their stance on maintaining the pre-directive agreements. We did, however, recognise that there were European Works Councils based on pre-directive agreements that were working well and that it would be risky to call them into question. This is why we proposed to safeguard these European Works Councils, as long as both management and employee representatives wanted to keep them and not renegotiate the agreement. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a consensus with the employers, who questioned the very need for the revision and too many of the important measures proposed by the Commission.