Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

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Two Green Papers
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, and the replies to
them addressed the social aspects of telework and revealed a highly polarised debate between
neoliberal approaches and supporters of regulative mechanisms. DIPLOMAT (AC 222) is a DG
XIII-funded project identifying areas of dispute and agreement and the perception of telework
risks and benefits among major European players (unions, industry, government and public
administrations, SME-lobbies, universities etc.) resulting in ‘good practice’ guidelines. MIRTI
(TE 2008), a project within the Commission's Telematics Applications Programme is the study of
collective agreements and telework contracts all over Europe and aims at developing model
contracts. At present, DG V prepares consultation of the European Social Partners, whether and
how far regulation of telework might be desirable and applicable.
The Members of the European Parliament have regularly directed queries to Commissioners
dealing with various aspects of the ‘Information Society’. A number of MEPs have signed ‘The
European Charter for Telework’. EPRIWATCH is a project dealing with the implementation of
ICT within the Parliament’s own offices.
Despite the numerous activities launched at the supranational level and a great stock of
accumulated knowledge on telework, the European Commission (as Europe's largest bureaucracy)
has so far been hesitant to implement telework to change its own organisational patterns. In 1997
the Commission announced that it will ‘study how telework can be promoted within the
Commission’.
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At present DG XIII and DG V are in a planning phase for setting up a telework
pilot in their own units. 
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