The Parliament reinforced the text in several ways, for ins- tance by making in-work poverty and a national basket of goods and services at real prices into two of the criteria to assess the adequacy of minimum wages, and by deman- ding an annual actualisation of the said wages. [...] On the side of the Council, the agreement on a general approach under the Slovenian presidency was deemed as a surprise due to the sensitive nature of the file. [...] The Parliament managed to maintain the mention of the reference values of 60% of the median wage and 50% of the average wage as well as the one relating to the basket of goods and services at real prices, but was unsuccessful in adding the in-work poverty criteria. [...] The Council trumped the Parliament’s ambitions when it came to the criteria of pro- ductivity, which remained in the text, and to the article on the possibility for exceptions and variations (although the need for a legitimate objective was still brought back from the Commission’s initial proposal). [...] Furthermore, looking at EU-wide surveys, social inequalities are seen as the top challenge for the EU, and nine out of ten Europeans claim that a social Europe is important to them personally.5 The need for rules on minimum wages in the EU was also one of the key recommendations submitted by citizens participating in the Conference on the Future of Europe.6 Nevertheless, we must insist on the fact.
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- Published in
- France
