On Friday 26 January, the Member States overwhelmingly supported the latest draft revised mandate on digital platform workers submitted by the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU (see EUROPE 13336/20). Only five Member States (Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia, according to several sources) opposed it, for various reasons.
Germany, as announced, abstained again, and Finland, although in support of the revised mandate, is said to have expressed concerns about Chapter 3 (algorithmic management) and fears about red tape.
As indicated on Wednesday 24 January after an initial discussion (see EUROPE 13335/43), the Belgian Presidency had brought the chapter on the legal presumption closer to the text of the general approach of the Council of the EU adopted last June and returned to the system of three indicators out of seven required to trigger the legal presumption of employment.
Its latest text also retains recital 31, which the European Parliament considers problematic, as well as derogations for tax and criminal authorities and social security institutions, which are excluded from the scope of this directive.
On Wednesday, several countries had criticised these latest additions, and Spain had also criticised the previous wording of the indicators (two out of five), judging that they could not allow workers on these platforms to be reclassified. After abstaining last June, Spain took a stance against the latest draft text on Friday.
Countries such as Luxembourg, which are also critical, particularly of recital 31 which refers to the various national collective agreements, reportedly wanted to support this draft mandate so as not to hinder the progress of discussions with the European Parliament. The two parties will meet on 30 January to resume negotiations.
On Friday morning, France, Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic had indicated that they might support this latest draft mandate, with some delegations stressing the importance of going to trilogue from this point.
Italy had already expressed its support for the previous version on 24 January, according to sources, but wanted to reflect further. In any case, the previous text of 20 January could already count on the support of 14 Member States.
The support observed on 26 January was much “broader than expected”, a source was pleased to say at the end of a discussion that lasted just over 30 minutes. The Council of the EU is therefore coming before the European Parliament with a “very strong new mandate”, the source added.
This will mean stormy discussions, as many of the European Parliament’s rapporteurs have voiced their dissatisfaction with Belgium’s latest draft texts, in particular the return of recital 31.
Some sources were already anticipating a “very short” trilogue meeting on Tuesday 30 January, if the Council of the EU were simply to ask the European Parliament to accept its position.
The European Parliament removed all the criteria required to trigger a presumption of employment in its first report, then agreed to move closer to the Member States and the Commission’s system of two out of five criteria required to trigger the presumption.
The agreement reached with the Spanish Presidency had toned down the elements contained in recital 31 and specified the material effects of reclassification decisions, including automatic investigations by labour inspectorates in the platforms following such court decisions.
These relatively important elements for the European Parliament have disappeared from the texts presented by the Belgian Presidency.
Link to the revised mandate: https://aeur.eu/f/alv (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)