This week, the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council will once again ask the Member States to support the agreement reached with the European Parliament on 8 February on digital platform workers.
This request could be made on Wednesday 6 March in the run-up to the Employment and Social Affairs Council on 11 March, or postponed until 8 March, depending on the outcome of the talks led by the Presidency and the chances of an agreement.
On this occasion, the Belgian Presidency will address in particular the four Member States that rejected the provisional agreement on 16 February - France, Estonia, Greece and Germany - and will ask them for “additional flexibility”, according to a note dated 1 March (see EUROPE 13352/1).
If no agreement is reached this week, the Belgian Presidency will attempt to convince the ministers directly during the Employment and Social Affairs Council. On Monday 4 March, it had not proposed any changes to the content of the agreement, which is identical to the one submitted on 16 February.
In this note dated 1 March, the Presidency points out that there have been eight trilogues on the dossier since July 2023 and, since then, it has incorporated “an alternative approach on the legal presumption [of salaried status], which leaves to Member States the setting of modalities for the introduction of an effective legal presumption in their national law”.
The Commission has also supported the Presidency in its efforts, notably by clarifying the notion of effective legal presumption and the expected impact of the directive on the traditional taxi sector.
The Presidency continues to believe that the provisional agreement “represents the best possible compromise” and “would like to call on the delegations to show additional flexibility and to agree on the current compromise text”, “taking into account the risk of missing the chance to adopt under the current legislative term this key piece of legislation that would considerably improve the rights of persons performing platform work and the working conditions of platform workers while supporting the development and sustainable growth of the platform economy”.
European trade unions keep up the pressure
For their part, the European trade unions, primarily those from the countries that rejected the agreement on 16 February, will this week be sending a letter to the governments of these four countries asking them to accept this latest compromise, which they believe will improve the situation of the 28 million platform workers and bring real progress in terms of transparency in the algorithmic management of work.
EUROPE will continue to follow this story.
Link to the note: https://aeur.eu/f/b49 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)