UEAPME, the confederation of small and medium sized enterprises within the European Union, which includes the Irish Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, is threatening to take a case to the European Court of Justice over its exclusion from the Social Dialogue Process.

At present only UNICE, the confederation of which IBEC is a member, and which primarily represents large companies, is recognised as a social partner in these talks.

The Social Dialogue Process is the means by which EU governments, the Commission, farming, trade union and employer bodies meet to discuss policy. The process was used during the Italian and Spanish presidencies to agree the parental leave directive, which will give parents entitlement to three months unpaid leave from work to meet family commitments.

If the UEAPME goes ahead with its legal challenge to the Social Dialogue Process and is successful, then the parental leave directive could be overturned. The new directives governing the working week and flexi time working could also be affected.

However, after meeting the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, yesterday, senior UEAPME members said that they were optimistic that their concerns would be addressed during the Irish Presidency of the EU.

Mr Jan Kamminga, president of the UEAPME and general secretary of the Dutch Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises, said that "more and more entrepreneurs feel they are not represented in the social dialogue. We have to open it up and involve others.

The UEAPME director general, Mr Hans Werner Muller, said that at present it was possible for large employers and trade unions to reach agreement, present their conclusions to the Commission which, in turn, could have them accepted by the Council of Ministers and become law.

At a time when unemployment was the greatest problem facing the EU and when 75 per cent of all new jobs were being created in small and medium enterprises, this was not a situation UEAPME members were prepared to accept.

Mr Muller said it was not the organisation's intention to overturn the parental leave directive but it was concerned about the implications of other measures being discussed, such as flexible working time.

The secretary general of UNICE, Mr Zygmunt Tyszkiewicz, said yesterday that there were difficulties about allowing UEAPME or other sectoral agencies to enter the social dialogue. UNICE represented employer interests across the EU and was also accepted by the trade unions as the legitimate body to represent employers.