On Friday 28 February, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) published a ‘counter-opinion’ on the directive on adequate minimum wages following the proposal to annul the directive by the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU (see EUROPE 13557/22).
The Advocate General ruled that the directive was incompatible with Article 153(5) of the Treaties (the EU may not take measures affecting pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lock-outs).
The ETUC rejects this argument and expects the Court to uphold the Directive: “The Advocate General reached his conclusions by failing to give sufficient weight to, or even to recognise, important aspects of the international and European legal framework or the relevant case-law ; - he also ignores the social objectives which the EU is obliged to achieve under the Treaties in general and the Title on Social Policy in particular, as well as the specific features of the social directives which leave sufficient flexibility to the Member States and the social partners to achieve these objectives when implementing the directive; - the methodology applied by the Advocate General also has a number of shortcomings, as well as certain inconsistencies and a lack of contextualisation. The Advocate General relied on a literal and technical interpretation of the exclusion of ‘pay’ which is not in line with the Treaties or the established case law of the CJEU”, adds the ETUC.
Link to the ETUC opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/fp0 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)