The European Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs will meet in Luxembourg on Monday 12 June for a meeting of the Council of the European Union, which will be dominated by the fate of the directive on digital platform workers.
After several failures at the level of the Member States’ permanent representatives to the EU, the Swedish Presidency will seek the opinion of the ministers and should try during the day to reconcile the points of view in order to leave Luxembourg with an agreement.
On Monday, the ministers will also be asked to adopt their mandate on exposure to lead and diisocyanates (see EUROPE 13182/22) and will have a progress report on the revision of the directive on exposure to asbestos. They will also debate equal treatment bodies and social convergence.
Platform workers
But it is the issue of platform workers that will attract the most attention. According to several sources, France now holds the key to the outcome, while several countries that previously held a blocking minority have been able to partially support the recent Swedish proposals. Their support will be conditional on maintaining what they see as improvements to the principle of presumption of salaried status.
The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU believes it has struck the right balance, in particular by finding ways to respect the collective agreements in place in the Member States and the different national models, given that a large proportion of platform workers are considered to be self-employed.
Under the latest proposal, workers would not be legally presumed to be employees of a digital platform if their relationship with a platform does not meet at least three of the seven criteria established to determine the worker’s arm’s length relationship with the platform (limits on remuneration, restrictions on the ability to work for others, rules governing their appearance or conduct, supervision of the performance of work, including by electronic means).
If these three criteria are met, then, in principle, a falsely self-employed worker should be reclassified. The platform should demonstrate that it is indeed working with a genuine freelancer.
But exceptions are provided for, and several countries have sought to tighten up the conditions for triggering the presumption, insisting, for example, that a criterion under the directive is not valid if it is already met under a national provision.
In any case, the latest text presents “a balance between, on the one hand, the creation of a system and, on the other, the taking into account of flexibilities in the sense that the national systems in place would find a living space within the system. And it’s a very difficult balance to strike”, according to a diplomatic source.
Exposure to lead and diisocyanates
The mandate proposed by the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU and to be adopted by the ministers includes a transitional occupational exposure value for lead (OEL) of 35 µg Pb/100 ml blood until 31 December 2028. For diisocyanates, a transitional value had already been proposed by the Commission.
With regard to lead exposure, “it may be difficult to comply with the biological limit value of 15 µg Pb/100 ml blood (advocated by the Commission). This difficulty is due to the time needed to implement risk management measures and costly adaptation of production processes, especially for companies operating in the sector of primary lead production. Consequently, a transitional value of 35 µg Pb/100 ml blood should apply until 31 December 2028”, explains the mandate.
Equal treatment
The ministers will also vote on the directives aimed at strengthening equal treatment bodies (see EUROPE 13196/20). Compared to the European Commission’s initial proposals, the position put forward by the Swedish Presidency introduces changes with regard to the independence, resources and judicial powers granted to these bodies (see EUROPE 13190/3).
Link to general approach on lead exposure: https://aeur.eu/f/7eq (Solenn Paulic with Hélène Seynaeve)