Legal action threat as talks on 48-hour week collapse

Efforts to broker a deal on the EU's 48-hour week collapsed yesterday, threatening to spark a flurry of legal cases and land governments with hefty bills to fund more hospital doctors.

Britain fought off a renewed effort to abolish its opt-out from the legislation which puts a ceiling on the working week. But the blockage also meant the end of an attempt to change the law governing junior hospital doctors, whose on-call time asleep now counts as working time, according to judgments in the European Court of Justice.

Yesterday's row illustrated the depth of the divisions within the EU over social legislation. The UK says that flexible labour laws are vital in a globalised economy and have helped underpin the UK's strong economic growth. One-third of UK workers waive the right to working-time limits.

France led calls for an eventual abolition of the UK opt-out which, it argues, undercuts minimum standards in other EU countries.

The UK had been prepared to accept a compromise under which it would have kept the opt-out. As a quid pro quo Britain would have reduced the overall ceiling for all workers from 78 hours a week to 65.

However, that proved unacceptable to five countries - led by France - because there was no date for an end to the opt-out. The impasse, and the failure to change the law on junior doctors, leaves as many of 23 out of the 25 EU countries in breach of the legislation. The European Commission may launch new legal cases.

The EU Employment Commissioner, Vladimir Spidla, said: "This isn't social progress, in my view, social progress is our duty."

"We tried to introduce restrictions on the opt-out," said Tarja Filatov, the Labour minister of Finland, which holds the EU presidency. "We were quite close to a solution, but not sufficiently close."