IR Notes

On 29 January, the European Commission unveiled its “Competitiveness Compass”, in the form of a communication that it sees as the “first major initiative” of its new mandate (see press release). This communication sets out the framework of the future initiatives it plans to take, which are designed to tackle the EU’s weaknesses, as identified by Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi in their reports. The communication announces three core areas for action: 1/ Closing the innovation gap, with the proposal to create a new company status, tailored to start-ups and scale-ups – the “28th legal regime”. In other words, a kind of 28th fictitious Member State, where companies can enjoy the benefit of simplified rules, especially in the area of labour law. 2/ Preparing a roadmap for decarbonisation and competitiveness, which aims to reinvigorate European industry. This roadmap includes an affordable energy action plan and tailor-made action plans for energy-intensive sectors, such as steel, metals and chemicals. 3/ Reducing excessive dependencies and increasing security, to safeguard the supply of raw materials, clean energy and sustainable transport fuels. The Commission also wants re-examine public procurement rules in 2026, to allow for the introduction of a European preference when placing public procurement contracts for critical sectors and technologies. In addition to these three core areas, the Commission is announcing “five horizontal enablers for competitiveness”, one of them being “simplification”, which aims to reduce the regulatory and administrative burden. It mentions several “Omnibus” packages designed to simplify legislation, including the upcoming proposal for an Omnibus directive, which will simplify “sustainability reporting, due diligence, and taxonomy” (see IR Notes 244). Another “enabler” is aimed at “promoting skills and quality jobs”, while ensuring “social fairness”. To “ensure a good match between skills and labour market demands”, the Commission will present an initiative to build a Union of Skills and a “Skills Portability” initiative. The Commission wants to work with social partners to “present a Quality Jobs Roadmap” and points out that “social dialogue will continue to be a foundation”.

Company boards : The European Commission has sent a letter of formal notice to 11 Member States, reminding them that they have not yet notified the Commission of the respective transposition measures they are taking in connection with Directive (EU) 2022/2381 of 23 November 2022 on improving the gender balance among directors of listed companies and related measures; and to six other States, who have notified it only of a partial transposition of the directive. This directive seeks to ensure a more balanced gender representation among directors on the boards of listed companies in all EU Member States. It sets a target of 40% for the under-represented sex among non-executive directors of EU large listed companies, and of 33% among all directors. The deadline for transposition of this directive was 28 December 2024 (see press release).

Automotive industry : On 30 January, President von der Leyen convened a meeting of key European automotive industry leaders, social partners and stakeholders, to launch a strategic dialogue on the industry’s future. The Commission, which acknowledges “the urgent need to take measures that will protect” this industry, has tasked Commissioner Tzitzikostas with presenting an action plan on 5 March (see press release). To nurture these exchanges, on 27 January, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) published an initial study of employment in the EU automotive sector, ahead of a forthcoming study of the impact of the twin transition on this sector, scheduled for later this year. Although car manufacturing jobs represent only 1.5% of total employment within the EU, a number of countries are highly exposed in the event of a crisis in this sector, given that it represents a much higher proportion of their total employment. They include Slovakia (5%), Czechia (4.4%), Romania (3.1%), Hungary (3%) and Germany (2.6%). Eurofound has also listed the job losses announced in 2024 (a net total of 88,000). At the meeting on 30 January, IndustriAll Europe called for three steps to be taken: 1/ an action plan to safeguard jobs in the sector and a stronger legal framework in order to better anticipate and manage structural change; 2/ implementing and complementing the Green Deal with a European industrial and investment strategy, as advocated by the Draghi report; 3/ a European action plan to manufacture clean cars and make them affordable to all (see press release).

Posted workers : At a time when work on revising the coordination of social security regulations (see Portability of social security rights), which has been in progress since 2016, finally appears to be resuming, European social partners in the construction sector issued a joint press release, calling for mandatory prior notification to be maintained for all posted workers in the construction sector. This notification “ensures transparency and accountability in cross-border postings. It prevents abusive practices like ‘fake postings’ and undeclared work, empowers authorities to monitor” compliance with laws and facilitates inspections. EFBWW General Secretary, Tom Deleu, condemns the proposal: “Once again, supposed simplification and competitiveness are being discussed at the expense of construction workers’ rights”, he says. “Such exemption would undermine the principle of fair mobility that we promote”, adds FIEC Director General, Domenico Campogrande.

Just transition : On 28 January, the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs passed a resolution calling for the European Commission to present a just transition directive in order to strengthen democracy in the workplace, in the context of climate change, digital transformation and company restructuring (see Just transition). This text, which was adopted by 40 votes in favour, 13 against and 4 abstentions, also addresses the forthcoming revision of the EU public procurement directive. MEPs invite the Commission to promote collective bargaining and preferential treatment for companies whose employees are covered by collective labour agreements. The idea is that EU financial aid should be withheld from companies that fail to meet the required standards governing working conditions and terms of employment. Parliament will vote on this draft resolution at one of its forthcoming plenary sessions (see press release).

Tripartite working group on platforms : The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has established a working group that brings together representatives of employers’ and employees’ organisations, and of the ministries responsible for occupational safety and health, protection of personal data and social security issues (see press release). The aim is to transpose the European directive on improving the working conditions of platform workers, by the December 2026 deadline (see IR Notes 240).

Institutional bullying : The Court of Cassation [Supreme Court] has handed down a final ruling on the France Télécom case relating to the introduction, in 2006, of a company policy affecting one quarter of the workforce of telecommunications group France Télécom. This involved cutting 20,000 jobs and redeploying a further 10,000 employees under an internal mobility plan. The implementation of this plan led to a “wave of suicides”, prompting the trade unions to bring a lawsuit against the directors serving on France Télécom’s board at that time. These directors, some of whom were sent to prison and ordered to pay fines, had challenged the Court of Appeal’s judgment. The main point of law that the Court of Cassation was asked to rule on was whether the directors’ behaviour could still be classified as “bullying”, within the meaning of Article 222-33-2 of the French Criminal Code, even though they had no direct contact with their victims. In a judgment dated 21 January, the Court of Cassation states that in situations involving conduct intended to impair employees’ working conditions, such conduct can be deemed to constitute bullying without the victim(s) having to be in direct contact with the perpetrator, and without the victims having to be individually identified. The Court takes the view that the following conduct “can be categorised as a situation of institutional bullying”: knowingly deciding on and implementing, “a company policy that is designed to impair the working conditions of some or all employees, with a view to cutting the size of the workforce or achieving any other objective, be it managerial, economic or financial, or which results in such an impairment, that may infringe the rights and undermine the dignity of these employees, harm their physical or mental health or compromise their professional future” (see press release).

Teleworkers’ safety : A survey performed by the FNV trade union confederation highlights the lack of attention paid to safety-related issues encountered by teleworkers, such as cyber-intimidation and sexting (see press release). Almost 47% of employees who suffer an incident fail to report it, either because they do not feel confident to do so, or due to fear of reprisals. Some employees who did dare to report incidents were either ordered to stay silent or threatened. The FNV believes that new procedures are needed to oversee this change in working practices.

Action plan for LGBTQ+ equality : This plan seeks to guarantee equal rights and opportunities, with measures that will encourage better working conditions for LGBTQ+ people (see press release), who are more exposed than others to discrimination, harassment and microaggressions in the workplace (see Eurofound report). The Swedish Work Environment Authority and the Swedish Agency for Work Environment Expertise have now been appointed as strategic authorities supervising these initiatives (see plan).

Corporate Social Responsibility : At a time when the European Commission is considering replacing the Green Deal texts and the Due Diligence and Corporate Sustainability Reporting directives with the future proposal for an “omnibus” directive (see IR Notes 244), on 28 January, the French energy group EDF and the international trade union federations IndustriAll Global Union and PSI renewed their previous Agreement on Corporate Social Responsibility and strengthened its content, with the aim of establishing it as a benchmark agreement in this area. The new agreement contains several new chapters supplementing the 2018 agreement and covering topics such as exercising due diligence, protecting the environment and combatting climate change. The section dealing with the digital transformation now contains a chapter on artificial intelligence.

Striking to protest against the ending of telework : The Catalan energy company Holaluz is facing a severe backlash after announcing plans to abolish teleworking and to discontinue several social benefits enjoyed by its employees. According to the trade unions, this decision led to the resignation of around 25% of the workforce, i.e. almost 50 workers, who view this measure as an Expediente de Regulación de Empleo (ERE) encubierto, in other words, a disguised collective redundancy. The benefits withdrawn include medical insurance, language lessons, leisure activities for employees’ children and most significantly of all, telework: from 28 January onwards, everyone will have to work on site, all of the time. Spain’s General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has responded to this decision by calling an all-out and indefinite strike from the same date. Management justifies these changes by citing the need to boost efficiency and to react to falls both in its sales and customer numbers. However, the trade unions believe that this measure is primarily intended to cut the size of the workforce, without going through formal redundancy proceedings, by putting pressure on employees to leave the company of their own initiative.

Artificial intelligence : On 22 January, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) published an own-initiative opinion on pro-worker artificial intelligence. Among other things, the EESC proposes broadening the scope of the provisions contained in the Platform Work Directive (PWD), in order to address “the challenges that algorithmic management systems pose to all workers” and strengthen the rules applicable under Directive 2002/14/EC when high-risk AI systems are introduced. It also calls for explicit guidance on the provisions of EU Directive 89/391 on Safety and Health at Work (see press release).

Minimum wages in the EU : The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) emphasises that the initial results of the annual review of minimum wages in the EU, due to be published in mid-2025, suggest that the directive on adequate minimum wages, which is now threatened by the Court of Justice (see IR Notes 244), is beginning to produce its effect. A growing number of countries have transposed the “indicative reference values” –  as recommended by the directive, for the purpose of assessing the adequacy of minimum wages, i.e. a level equivalent to either 50% of the average wage or 60% of the median wage  –  into their domestic legislation. It remains to be seen whether these reference values will be high enough to ensure that adequate minimum wages are paid in all Member States.

EU citizens are feeling dispirited : On 13 January, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) published the results of a survey of several tens of thousands of EU citizens, which offers little comfort. These citizens found it harder to make ends meet in 2024 than they did in 2023 (30% compared to 22%, and even 56% among low-income households, compared to 40% in 2023). This situation also goes some way towards explaining the deterioration in mental well-being affecting all age brackets, except those aged 65 and over. It reveals an increase in negative feelings such as tension, anxiety and loneliness, particularly among young adults, and in the number of people who said they regularly felt downhearted or depressed. 30% of respondents reported that they frequently worried about work outside their working hours, a figure that represents a return to the level observed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The survey also shows a decline in remote-only jobs: among teleworkable jobs, the proportion of employees working exclusively from home was 14% in 2024, compared to 19% in 2023 and 24% in 2022. A total of 44% of employees work in hybrid mode (compared to 45% in 2023) and 41% no longer work from home at all (compared to 36% in 2023). There is still a significant difference between the number of workers who would prefer to work from home and those who are allowed to do so, especially given that the percentage wishing to work exclusively from home rose from 13% in 2020 to 24% in 2024, whereas more than 50% would like to work from home several times a week. Satisfaction levels with democracy remain low and even decreased to 4.5 points (out of 10) in 2024, compared to 4.8 points in 2023. Only five countries score above 5 points: Denmark (6.4), Luxembourg (5.9), Sweden (5.8), Ireland (5.7) and Germany (5.3). Hungary is in last place (2.7), behind Bulgaria (3) and Greece and Croatia (both on 3.2).