After an in-depth analysis of the Commission’s proposed directive on minimum wages, taking into account the opinion from the Council Legal Service, the authors can note that significant legal barriers exist for EU legislators to adopt a directive with the content proposed by the Commission.
The Legal Service’s analysis and conclusions strengthen the authors´ assessment that the proposal is contrary to Article 153(5) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which explicitly excludes “pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lockouts” from EU legislative competence.
The Legal Service must deepen its analysis to enable the Council to participate in the negotiations while protecting the Treaty’s limits and respecting the fundamental principles, including on conferral of competences.