The European Parliament and EU Council negotiating groups will meet again on Tuesday 26 April to discuss the directive on minimum wages in the European Union.
Co-legislators have recently made some important progress, notably on public procurement. We understand that the co-legislators agreed not to go beyond the legal obligations of the “relevant” directives, while stressing the importance of not awarding public procurement contracts to companies that do not respect legal minimum wages or collective agreements.
This leaves the very thorny Article 5 on how to determine the adequacy of statutory minimum wages and Article 6 on variations and deductions from minimum wages, two problematic articles where the views of the European Parliament and the EU Council differ greatly.
As a reminder, the European Parliament clearly makes reference in the body of the legislation to the international criteria for calculating wage adequacy (60% of the national median wage and 50% of the national average wage) (see EUROPE 12831/19), whereas the EU Council has opted for a much less stringent definition (see EUROPE 12847/1). The European Parliament, on the other hand, has deleted the article giving the possibility to apply variations on minimum wages, where the EU Council maintained it.
To consult the 4-column document of 8 April: https://aeur.eu/f/19m (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)