On Tuesday 18 February, the Polish Presidency of the EU Council presented a new compromise proposal on the directive on quality traineeships, which will be submitted to the Working Party on Social Questions on 28 February.
The compromise text “aims to clarify the terms used and the purpose of the proposed Directive and to ensure the proposal has added value once implemented”, it writes.
It focuses, among other things, on the scope and definitions to “o better reflect that the Directive pursues two objectives: (a) to improve and enforce the working conditions of trainees in open market traineeships, and (b) to detect and combat false traineeships”.
In line with the objective of improving and enforcing working conditions for trainees, “Chapter II (Equal Treatment) and Chapter IV (Enforcement and supporting measures) apply to trainees in open market traineeships who have an employment contract or are in an employment relationship”.
To combat false traineeships, “that are in fact employment relationships, the scope of Chapter III (False traineeships) includes any person engaged in a false traineeship, regardless of the type of traineeship”.
However, the Presidency maintains the exclusion of traineeships with a formal link to education and training from the scope of the directive as a whole.
And a new Recital 16 also retains a list of specific cases (“Due to their specific regulatory frameworks and the specific public interests they pursue, traineeships with formal connection to education or training should not be covered by this Directive, such as vocational education and training relationships, apprenticeships, traineeships which are carried out within the framework of formal education, including those that are a prerequisite to start formal education or vocational education and training, as well as traineeships that are obligatory in order to achieve a specific degree or qualification, professional traineeships as defined in Directive 2005/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the recognition of professional qualifications [...]”).
The Presidency has also introduced two new definitions of “open market traineeship” and “false traineeship”. The first is defined as a traineeship based on a non-mandatory, bilateral agreement between a trainee and a traineeship provider. The notion of a “false traineeship” is defined as an employment relationship that is mislabelled as a traineeship without fulfilling the definition of a traineeship, thereby resulting into a lower level of protection for the individual concerned (the false “trainee”) than the protection accorded to a comparable employee.
The Presidency has also adjusted the notion of “traineeship” to improve employability and facilitate professional transition
The text also introduces a reasonable duration for traineeships with a new recital: “ While the appropriate duration of a traineeship may vary depending on its purpose and sector, a duration of up to six months is generally considered sufficient to achieve its intended objectives. A significantly longer duration, particularly where multiple consecutive traineeships are conducted with the same provider, may raise concerns about the genuine nature of the traineeship and should be carefully assessed”.
With regard to the effective measures to be taken by the Member States to detect and combat false traineeships, the Presidency states that it is up to the Member States to decide on the corrective measures to be taken. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)