Brussels, 22/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Some ten eastern European member states, led by Poland, have referred the minimum wage introduced by Germany on 1 January to the European Commission. Their concerns are principally over the impact this will have for lorry drivers. The Commission is pulling out the stops to make sense of the implications (see EUROPE 11235).
Polish Finance Minister Mateusz Szczurek, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday 22 January, said that, if the minimum wage of €8.50 per hour were to be applied also to lorry drivers in transit, it would be “a flagrant non-tariff barrier in the common market”. The measure would “run counter to all the calls for structural reform that deepens the common market. It's dangerous, even for the stability of the eurozone”, he is quoted by AFP as stating (our translation).
Nine other countries - Estonia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia - share the same concerns and wonder about application of the German minimum wage to posted workers. Representatives of these countries are due to meet the Commission on Friday 23 January to air their complaints, a Commission source has revealed. Other countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland, may have sympathy for this course of action, the same source said.
The Commission confirmed to the press that it had been alerted about this problem. At this moment, it is of the view that the German provisions are generally in line with its social policy. The Commission will, however, take a closer look at how the new German legislation will apply to the road transport sector. The EU Pilot system, which brings together the member states and the Commission legal services, is believed to have been activated on this issue, to check whether the German provisions comply with EU legislation. According to our sources, the EU has some doubts as to whether the minimum wage in Germany can be applied to posted workers.
As EUROPE announced previously, the European commissioners with responsibility for social affairs and transport, Marianne Thyssen and Violeta Bulc, will discuss this issue with the German authorities when they visit Berlin on 26 and 27 January respectively. (MD)