The European Parliament’s Committees on Employment (EMPL) and on Gender Equality (FEMM) discussed, on Thursday 30 September, the first draft report by Samira Rafaela (Renew Europe, Netherlands) and Kira Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA, Denmark) on the future EU directive on pay transparency (see EUROPE 12671/1).
In this draft report, detailed in our columns at the beginning of September (see EUROPE 12786/21), the two rapporteurs tackle in, particular one, of the major parts of this future directive: Article 8, which would require companies with at least 250 employees to publish, each year, information on the pay gap between their female and male workers.
Kira Peter-Hansen and Samira Rafaela propose that this measure should be introduced for all companies with at least 10 employees, with a report every three years for companies with 10-50 employees, every two years for companies with 50-250 employees and every year for companies with 250 or more employees.
This change - justified, according to the two rapporteurs, by the fact that women are over-represented in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - is, however, divisive among political groups.
For S&D, the Parliament should go further and extend this measure to all companies.
“It would not be fair for some women to be excluded from our directive”, insisted Marc Angel (Luxembourg), Socialist rapporteur for the EMPL Committee.
However, acknowledging that this should not create an administrative burden or additional costs for small businesses, he assured that his group would introduce “an amendment to introduce some clauses for micro-enterprises and SMEs, for example requiring that enterprises with less than 10 workers should only present their report every five years”.
Among the other shadow rapporteurs, however, no one was particularly enthusiastic about the proposal.
Sylvie Brunet of France, Renew Europe rapporteur for the EMPL committee, did not oppose lowering the initial threshold, but proposed setting the threshold at 50 employees rather than 10. “Both to avoid overburdening too small companies, but also to guarantee the confidentiality of the data”, she justified.
The EPP, ID and ECR groups were reluctant to involve any company with fewer than 250 employees.
“I really believe this will create difficulties for businesses”, argued Maria Walsh, on behalf of the EPP, warning against the risk of increased burdens.
Work on the dossier has also begun slowly in the EU Council - where it requires a particularly tedious consultation process in some delegations’ capitals, a diplomatic source told EUROPE.
The Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council has explored some possible compromises (see EUROPE 12798/18). However, at this stage, no significant changes to Article 8 are envisaged.
To consult the Parliament’s draft: https://bit.ly/3F7V455 (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)