On 03 June, the European Commission launched the second-stage consultation of the European social partners- a pre-requisite for a European Commission social initiative - on the minimum wage. As one of EU Commission President, Ms. von der Leyen’s priorities, the need for this initiative is all the more blatant today for the European Executive in so far as recent events have further cemented demand for EU efforts to reduce rising wage inequalities and in-work poverty as well as the fact that any European economic recovery depends on internal demand. As a reminder, the EU Commission is not aiming to set a uniform European minimum wage, nor to harmonize systems for setting minimum wages, but instead to put in place mechanisms, and especially by fostering collective bargaining, which aim to ensure that these wages make it possible to live decently and that they are guaranteed to all.
23 European employer and trade union organizations responded to the first consultation phase (c.f. article No.11587). The EU Commission has to find a way to maneuver between, on the one hand a trade union movement that sought to steer the initiative towards an instrument promoting collective bargaining as a remedy for a badly functioning labor market (essentially in terms of job insecurity) and which, in its view, explains why employees earn low wages, and on the other hand, an employers’ movement that outright rejects any legislative initiative on the subject of wages, and that argues for EU convergence policies (e.g.
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