The government agreed on Tuesday to give temporary workers the same rights as full-time staff after only 12 weeks in the job, in a deal likely to break years of deadlock over a European Union law on how long people may work.
A deal struck between the government, employers and unions is likely to pave the way for a compromise on EU-wide proposals for equal pay and conditions for agency employees at a meeting of the 27 EU labour ministers on June 9.
This, in turn, could ensure Britain and some other EU states keep their opt-out from EU rules restricting the working week to 48 hours since European ministers, frustrated by more than three years without progress, linked the two issues last December.
For some countries, concessions made on one of the laws could be offset by more favourable solutions to the second.
"The two will be linked. If there is an agreement on one I think there will be an agreement on the other one as well," said European Commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein.
"The likelihood is quite high," she said.
A deal to change the 1993 EU working time directive would come as a relief to most governments as many face a choice between expensive increases in staff in their emergency services or lawsuits from workers unless the legislation is changed.
This is because the EU's top court has ruled that on-call time at the workplace should be counted as working time, putting many emergency and health workers over the 48-hour limit.
Ministers agreed long ago to change the law so that inactive on-call time is not counted as work, but they could not agree on exceptions to the 48-hour rule, blocking an overall deal.
Britain and some other EU members have opt-outs, but a group led by France wanted to scrap all exceptions, arguing the 48-hour week protects employees from exploitation and accidents.
