You oversaw the adoption of the EWC directive’s revision. This has now been published and it entered into force on 31 December. Is the Commission’s task now completed?
No, absolutely not! The Commission’s task now is to provide its support to Member States, with a view to ensuring a correct and timely transposition of amending Directive (EU) 2025/2450. To this end, Member States have been invited to appoint experts involved in the transposition work, who will take part in specific meetings of an expert group chaired by the Commission. EEA/EFTA Member States and European organisations of social partners have also been invited to appoint observers to sit on the expert group. A series of expert group meetings is scheduled for the early months of 2026. At these meetings, the Commission’s representatives will provide explanations and general information concerning the various amendments made. States and social partners will be able to ask questions and formulate their observations regarding the interpretation of these amendments and any aspects relevant to their implementation.
Minutes and other documents relating to the work of this group will be published in the online register of Commission expert groups (under code E03694). The discussions held at these meetings will then be summarised in a final report. It too will be published.
States must then adopt and publish the measures necessary for transposition of the revision by 1 January 2028. These transposition measures must be notified to the Commission, and accompanied by the necessary explanations.
Most of the new provisions will come into force in domestic law from 2 January 2029 onwards, following a one-year deferment period. However, the removal of some companies’ exemptions from the directive’s scope of application, and the transitional provisions concerning the adaptation of existing EWC agreements will apply immediately after the transposition period comes to an end.
Once the transposition process is completed, the Commission will check the completeness and conformity of the measures notified to it, and will be able to take all necessary procedural measures to remedy any omissions or non-conformities. Lastly, for the benefit of those who believe that the new directive is hard to read, insofar as it amends or adds articles to the 2009 directive, I would emphasise that once the Publications Office of the European Union has incorporated the amendments provided for by Directive (EU) 2025/2450, a new consolidated version of Directive 2009/38/EC is due to be published on the EUR-Lex website. Consolidated texts aren’t authentic versions, and they have no legal effect, but they’ll still make the directive much easier to read.
