The European Commission has taken “note” of the Danish government’s intention to challenge before the EU Court of Justice the Directive on minimum wages adopted in June, “an important piece of EU law”, it told EUROPE on Tuesday 10 January (see EUROPE 12973/7).
Mette Frederiksen’s government made the announcement before the Christmas break. And while Sweden, which has just taken over the EU Council Presidency, has not made similar announcements, the Swedish social partners in the private sector are calling on their government to follow Copenhagen’s lead, they told EUROPE on 9 January in a statement.
The Swedish social partners in the private sector are “of the opinion that the Swedish government should side with Denmark in its action to annul the minimum wage Directive. Specifically, we call on the Swedish government, in close consultation with us, to intervene in the case before the European Court of Justice in support of our allies in Copenhagen”, they write.
These actors fear in particular that the Directive “will compromise the Swedish labour market model in the long term”.
“The Adequate Minimum Wages Directive has been carefully designed to strike a balance between the ambition to ensure decent working conditions across the EU and the need to respect the autonomy of the social partners and the competence of Member States in the area of ‘wages’ (in accordance with the relevant Treaty provisions)”, the Commission replies.
“Denmark and Sweden already have best practices in several respects: high wage levels, well-established collective bargaining and high collective bargaining coverage. The Directive recognises this and builds on it”, the institution adds.
Furthermore, the Directive “explicitly states that Member States where minimum wage protection is provided exclusively by collective agreements are not obliged to introduce a statutory minimum wage or to make a collective agreement universally applicable”, the Commission says.
Link to the Swedish social partners: https://aeur.eu/f/4u7 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)