ABSTRACT
Under Article 117 of the Rome treaty the member states agreed on the need to promote improved living and working conditions for workers, while Article 118 gave the commission the task of promoting close cooperation between member states in the social field, particularly in matters relating to employment, labour law and social security and so on. As regards labour law, the EU complements policy initiatives taken by individual EU countries by setting minimum standards. Individual EU countries are free to provide higher standards if they so wish. For instance, while the European Working Time Directive entitles workers to 20 days' annual paid leave, many countries have opted for a more generous holiday allocation. The free flow of goods, services, capital and workers needs to be accompanied by labour law rules, to make sure that countries and businesses compete fairly on the strength of their products and their technical skills not by lowering labour standards in a race to the bottom.
