On Thursday 19 June, the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU finally reached a political agreement (‘general approach’) on the directive on quality traineeships and the fight against “false traineeships”, after presenting a final compromise definitively excluding traineeships carried out as part of active labour market policies from the scope of the directive.
Countries such as Spain and Slovenia had indicated that they could not support the project already on the table, deeming it too unambitious, and this latest compromise has done nothing to bring them on board.
On the other hand, it has made it possible to convince additional countries to form a qualified majority, which hadn’t been achieved on 11 June (see EUROPE 13657/20).
On Thursday, only Germany (which never explained the reasons for its rejection to its partners), Spain, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria (abstention) and the Czech Republic (abstention) were unable to approve this draft directive, which was presented in March 2024, after the Czech government, through its permanent representative to the EU, once again indicated that it could contribute to increasing the administrative burden on businesses.
At the end of the public session, the Polish Minister for the Family, Labour and Social Policy, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, said that an “important step” had been taken “towards strengthening the protection of trainees”.
The Vice-President of the Commission, Roxana Mînzatu, also welcomed this political agreement, but also said that she hoped negotiations with Parliament “raise the level of the legislation”, the aim of which is to be “effective in a context of returning to competitiveness”, but also to cover “as many beneficiaries as possible”, she commented.
The draft directive adopted aims to improve and enforce working conditions for trainees and combat ‘false traineeships’, while preserving the existing models already in place in the Member States.
Having excluded all formal traineeships from education and training, as well as traineeships carried out in order to find a job as part of activation measures, the directive will apply to all other traineeships in the open market, i.e. trainees engaged in an employment relationship in order to improve working conditions such as fair pay or trade union representation.
It also aims to track down abusive practices involving ‘false traineeships’, by giving Member States optional indicators for identifying them.
However, the Member States wished to retain a high degree of flexibility on these issues, particularly with regard to the checks carried out by labour inspectorates, which are already meticulously regulated in most Member States.
Countries with a strong tradition of social dialogue, such as Sweden and Denmark, have also obtained arrangements for derogations from the directive in order to respect the full decision-making autonomy of their social partners.
The agreement also specifies that the directive does not impose any obligation on Member States to introduce a specific employment relationship for trainees in their national law. Member States will also be able to choose the measures to be taken to achieve the objective of combating ‘false traineeships’.
There are currently more than 3 million trainees in the EU, but for Joaquín Pérez Rey, Spain’s Secretary of State for Employment, this directive, as it stands, covers barely 1/4 of European trainees and will do nothing to remedy precarious situations and abusive practices.
“We are also critical of the lack of control over employers’ obligations: 1.5 million trainees are unpaid. Of these, over 300,000 were on long-term placements (over 6 months), including consecutive placements with the same employer. Nor is the principle of non-discrimination against trainees guaranteed, and there are no training obligations for companies”.
Parliament’s rapporteur is angry. For Alicia Homs Ginel (S&D, Spanish), this decision is “clearly disappointing and turns its back to young people. We expected more ambition from the Council side, but we see with the decision that nearly 80% of the traineeships are going to be excluded from the scope”, she told Agence Europe.
Essential safeguards are also lacking, paving the way for unequal treatment and a lack of access for trade unions. Parliament will vote in September and, “after seeing the Council’s proposal, it needs to be even more ambitious [...] in order to protect 100% of young people with this directive”.
Link to the general orientation project: https://aeur.eu/f/hfe
Link to the approved compromise document: https://aeur.eu/f/hfd (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)