The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU will submit a final compromise proposal (‘general approach’) on the Pay Transparency Directive to the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU on Wednesday the 1 December (see EUROPE 12664/1).
If approved by ambassadors on Wednesday, the general approach will then be put to a vote by EU ministers, on Monday 6 December, at a meeting of the Employment and Social Affairs Council of the EU.
The text, which will be sent to the ambassadors and of which EUROPE has obtained a copy, “addresses the majority of the concerns raised by the delegations by allowing for more flexibility for the Member States while keeping the main elements necessary for the effective application of the principle of equal pay”, assures the Presidency in an introductory note.
This latest draft still includes some changes compared to the draft examined in mid-November and detailed in our columns (see EUROPE 12833/17).
In particular, it now provides that companies with 50 or fewer employees (“small and micro enterprises”) may, by decision of the Member State in which they are established, be exempted from the obligation to “make easily accessible” to their employees the criteria they use to determine their employees’ pay progression. A provision that will make it possible to “reduce the administrative burden” imposed on these companies, the Presidency assures.
No exemption is envisaged, however, for the obligation to make accessible the criteria used by an employer to determine the remuneration and pay levels of its workers.
Nor is there much news on the main measure of the future directive, namely the collection of information on the pay gap between women and men.
The EU27 still envisage that this measure should apply on an annual basis to all companies with 250 or more employees and that the information collected should be transmitted by employers to the competent national authorities for publication.
The text under review also maintains that, if these collections reveal an unjustified difference in average pay levels of at least 5%, a “joint assessment” will have to be conducted.
However, the content of the joint evaluation has been modified. The European Commission suggested that “any difference in pay levels between female and male workers in each category of workers” should be assessed by means of the latter. The EU27 now propose that the assessment should focus instead on the differences between the “average pay levels” received by women and men in each category.
In the European Parliament, MEPs are also finalising their position, which should be voted on in the parliamentary committee on 9 December. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)