On 5 July, the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union submitted to the Member States an initial compromise on the proposal for a directive on quality traineeships presented by the Commission in March (see EUROPE 13424/14).
While a number of Member States had expressed doubts about the objectives and scope of the directive and the accompanying recommendation (see EUROPE 13432/22), the Hungarian Presidency carried out an initial clarification exercise before the summer break.
With regards to the scope of application, it explains in this document seen by Agence Europe, “it identifies two groups of trainees concerned by this proposal: (A) trainees who are in an employment relationship (i.e. workers); (B) trainees who are not formally in an employment relationship”.
A new article specifies that the directive only applies to trainees who are in an employment relationship, whether they are formally in such a relationship or whether they are in fact to be considered as being in a disguised employment relationship and therefore considered as ‘workers’ under EU law.
Following the same logic, the Presidency has changed the definition of ‘trainee’ to ‘trainee in the context of an employment relationship’, according to the memo. “This change implies that both (A) trainees who are in an employment relationship and (B) trainees who are not in an employment relationship fall under the definition of ‘traineeship’”.
The Presidency has also “followed the suggestion by many delegations to exclude those traineeships that are part of curricula of formal education or vocational education and training”. It has provided further clarification on the ‘equal treatment’ aspect and replaced the reference to ‘comparable regular employees’ with ‘employees in comparable entry-level positions’ in order to specify with whom trainees in an employment relationship should be compared.
On disguised employment relationships, the Presidency refocuses the scope, it explains, to deal only with the difference between a trainee who is genuinely not in an employment relationship and a worker, regardless of the type of worker (i.e. a trainee in an employment relationship or not).
In general, the Presidency has endeavoured to better reflect the diversity of national systems, such as, for example, controls and inspections to track down disguised employment relationships, which must remain in line with national legislation or practices.
An initial working group examined the text on 18 July. The issue is not yet on the agenda of the EU Council’s Social Questions groups, whose meetings are scheduled for early September. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)