Any period of grace granted by a member state for the disposal, storage, placing on the market and use of existing stocks of plant protection products containing metam should be limited to twelve months in order to allow existing stocks to be used in one further growing season, which ensures that plant protection products containing metam remain available to farmers until 13 January 2011.

The periods of inactivity cannot, therefore, count as rest periods, especially where the worker is not guaranteed the minimum number of hours of continuous rest.

Management measures are also encouraged: monitoring, fallowing, co-ordinated treatment in adjacent farms.

The main features of the Directive are as follows: - The Directive applies to all cases of posting of workers between Member States, provided that: = the undertaking posting workers is established in a Member State; = posting takes place in the framework of a transnational provision of services (this presupposes the existence of a contract between the undertaking providing the services and the party requesting the provision of services); = there is an employment relationship between the posting undertaking and the worker during the period of posting. - The list of terms and conditions of employment covered by the Directive comprises: = ...[+++] minimum rates of pay; = minimum length of paid annual holidays; = maximum work periods and minimum rest periods; = the conditions of hiring-out of workers, in particular the supply of workers by temporary employment undertakings; = health, safety and hygiene at work; = protective measures with regard to the terms and conditions of employment of pregnant women or women who have recently given birth, of children and of young people; = equality of treatment between men and women and other provisions on non-discrimination. To be applicable to cases of posting, the provisions concerned must be laid down in regulatory texts.

insufficient rest or recovery period.

- The list of conditions of work and employment referred to by the Directive will include: . minimum rates of pay; . minimum paid annual holidays; . maximum work periods and minimum rest periods; . the conditions for hiring-out of workers, in particular the supply of workers by temporary employment agencies; . health, safety and hygiene at work; . protective measures for pregnant women or women who have recently given birth, for children and for young people; . equality of treatment between men and women and other provisions on non-discrimination.