Towards a preliminary political agreement on the proposed directive on equal pay for men and women (so-called pay transparency)? As the Council of the EU and the European Parliament concluded a fourth round of interinstitutional negotiations on Wednesday 30 November (see EUROPE 13059/28), positive reactions are pouring in on social networks. Behind the scenes, EUROPE is more nuanced.
In fact, both the European Parliament and the EU Council speak of a “good meeting”, “a big step forward towards a compromise” and “a deal on the main political lines”. At the end of the negotiations, which lasted until two in the morning, a compromise text was not on the table.
Wanting to speed up the negotiations, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council reportedly presented a “package deal”, approved by the deputy ambassadors to the EU (‘Coreper 1’) on Friday 25 November, from which it would be reluctant to deviate. After a series of questions and discussions, the Parliament and the EU Council are said to have agreed on the “main political lines”. However, these must be translated into a legislative text, which will be drawn up at the technical level. However, the approval of the Parliament would be subject to the respect of these policy lines in the final document.
Points of divergence remain
The most difficult issues are the minimum employee threshold for companies to report pay inequality data and the percentage that is considered an acceptable pay gap. While on this last point the parties have had difficulties in finding common ground, a compromise is said to have been reached on the reporting obligations.
The EU Council is said to have agreed to remove the exemption for micro-enterprises to make available to workers a description of the gender-neutral criteria used to determine their pay, but would have retained the obligation to provide disaggregated pay data (enabling an employee to determine whether he or she is being discriminated against on pay). On the obligations to publish the gender pay gap, the institutions have reportedly reached a compromise.
Finally, on the issue of the inclusion of non-binary people in the scope of the directive, non-binary people would only be mentioned, as requested by the EU Council. On the other hand, the institutions reportedly agreed on a recognition of the ‘intersectional’ character of discrimination and for its “taking into account in the compensations”.
A new round of interinstitutional negotiations will therefore be necessary for the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to decide on a new text and possibly reach a political agreement, which all three institutions would like to achieve before Christmas. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)