European employment law must be made more flexible if an expanded EU is to compete successfully with developing world economies, the solicitor director-general of the Confederation of British Industry told business lawyers at the weekend.

Speaking at Birmingham Law Society's first international legal symposium, Digby Jones hit out strongly against the Working Time Directive, saying it was damaging European businesses.

He said that with expansion to 25 states scheduled for this May, the EU was at 'five minutes to midnight' in relation to employment law, and that it was 'valiantly marching forward to the ideology of the 1970s'.

Mr Jones said that 'we have to pursue the ideal of flexibility and choice in the workplace if we want to be competitive with India, China and the US'.

He also called on the UK government to embrace economic immigration, and he suggested lawyers needed to encourage ministers to combat an expected wave of xenophobia from the tabloid newspapers following EU expansion.

'This is economic migration and not asylum, and we need to stop the demonisation of immigration,' said Mr Jones.

'If we do not, then we run the danger of all the good skilled economic migrants going to the US.'

[2004] Gazette, 12 February, page 13

Jonathan Ames