EU: agreement in sight for a European minimum wage
The European Commission, Parliament and the 27 governments have agreed on a European minimum wage.
Here, workers on the Saint-Nazaire construction site, in France, in 2017 (Illustration image).
© LOIC VENANCE / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
After long negotiations between the European Commission, the Parliament and the 27 governments, the three European institutions came to an agreement on the night of Monday 6 to Tuesday 7 June with a view to establishing a European minimum wage.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
The Commission made its first proposal in October 2020 when, for years, the minimum wage had been considered the exclusive responsibility of each country in the Union.
Europe should be able to turn the page on the wage competition that leads workers from the East or the center of the continent to come and seek jobs in the West under conditions hardly better than in their countries of origin.
The European directive, which has yet to be formally approved, will make it possible to define reference salaries, minimum criteria for setting remuneration, deadlines for salary upgrades.
More than a real minimum wage with a threshold common to the Twenty-Seven, it is above all a framework for setting adequate remuneration in agreement with the social partners.
Months for an adoption in each country
Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs acknowledges that it will still take months, or even more, before the European directive can be transposed, that is to say adopted in the national legislation of each country. , but according to him, the impetus is given and it will be crucial to face the current surge in prices.
“
There is a strong political aspect, it is that in the context of high inflation, the lowest wages must not be the victim of these inflationary tensions.
We have to be very careful now not to go in the direction of a fall in real wages, because that would take us straight into stagflation
,” he says.
And this text also promotes collective agreements as they exist for example in Denmark or Sweden.
Six countries do not have a minimum wage.
The EU does not want to force their hand, but says the new directive will bring the rest of the continent closer to their very worker-friendly model.
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Germany: the minimum hourly wage will increase to 12 euros gross in October
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