Member States failed, on Wednesday 24 May, to give the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union a majority on the Platform Workers Directive (see EUROPE 13185/13), several sources told EUROPE.
The latest compromise text was similar to the previous ones, which also failed to achieve a majority of EU countries, so the positions of the Member States remained unchanged. Germany, on the other hand, still has no opinion on this directive, which will be presented at the end of 2021.
National delegations are divided. Some ‘pro-Commission proposal’ countries consider the criteria for triggering the presumption of employment to be too strict and difficult to implement. Other delegations still want to add criteria to further limit the triggering of the presumption.
Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are part of this so-called ‘pro-Commission’ group.
Other countries still have concerns about compliance with national agreements organising the conditions of self-employed platforms.
According to one source, the following countries have expressed their opposition to the text presented: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Portugal, Greece, France and the Baltic States.
Spain, usually considered to be in the so-called ‘pro-Commission’ group, had not given its position at the time of going to press.
The Swedish Presidency of the EU Council, which still plans to submit the text to the EU ‘Employment and Social Affairs’ Council on 12 June, acknowledged that “more work is needed”. On Wednesday, it gave no indication of further discussions at the level of Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) before 12 June. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)