The Member States, meeting on Friday 10 November to take stock of the last negotiating meeting with the European Parliament on 8 November regarding the Directive on digital platform workers, did not have any real exchange of views, according to some sources, but the meeting did confirm the great difficulty for the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU in finding a compromise with Parliament on the legal presumption aspect.
A working group of the EU Council was also informed of the results of the trilogue on Monday 13 November. Although the negotiators made progress on certain chapters of the Directive on 8 November, the Presidency confirmed to the Member States on 10 November that Parliament had reacted negatively to its ‘non-paper’ on the legal presumption of salaried status, which hardly deviates from the Council of the EU’s mandate adopted on 12 June.
The stumbling blocks remain the triggering of the legal presumption and the evidence that a person carrying out platform work must provide. The Presidency emphasised to Parliament that the EU Council is interested in an effective presumption of law, which also respects national rules of procedural law, it reported again on 10 November.
While, according to one source, the report made by the Spanish Presidency on Friday 10 suggests genuine uncertainty about the possibility of reaching an agreement and the way in which an agreement could be reached on the legal presumption, the Commission, for its part, would have made it known during this trilogue that progress could be made if the EU Council clarifies its intentions to Parliament.
The next trilogue will take place on 28 November. According to one source, the Spanish Presidency is also expected to present new approaches to the Member States at a new Coreper meeting before this new trilogue, while Parliament has also been asked to reformulate things in writing.
According to the Spanish Presidency, this Coreper meeting is not yet scheduled for this week. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)