Meantime although Germany has still not ratified the Maastricht Treaty and there is every chance that the Supreme Court there will declare it unconstitutional, Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that none of the leaders attending the European Community summit next week were in favour of lowering the criteria for European economic and monetary union. The criteria will not be changed under any circumstances. But German Economics Minister Gunter Rexrodt is already calling for Germany to back off on the Health & Safety Directive and the Social Chapter of the treaty, and to relax the German restrictions on working hours that are already in line with the Social Chapter and working hours directive, and have proved so irksome to companies such as IBM Deutschland GmbH. Rexrodt says he plans to change laws governing working hours to allow more people to work Sundays and public holidays, according to Bild. Rexrodt called on religious groups and on German unions to put a stop to their emphatic rejection of any Sunday working.
