The European Commission’s social package, presented on 26 April, seeks to re-inject a social dimension in the European project, thereby aligning Europe’s citizens with the EU. Reflection papers of a political nature (Social Rights Pillar, future for the Social Europe, see our article n°100176) as well as more concrete measures cascaded from Brussels in attempt to show the coherency of the project and precisely explain the real impact of its intentions, and on this point it presented no less than four initiatives including: a draft directive on parental leave, an interpretation of the working time directive and two consultations with the social partners, the first being over the directive on employment contract information and the second over access to social protection. Both consultation issues have formed part of the discussion over new forms of employment and over minimum protection levels for workers on the fringes of salaried employment.
Proposed directive on parental leave. The subject lead to heated exchanges between the European employers’ body BusinessEurope and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), on the eve of the official adoption of the project to overhaul the 2010/18 directive on parental leave (on the current text, see our article n°100243). Employers are displeased with the legislative initiative approach on the issue, which until now has been handled by the social partners (both directives on parental leave are the result of negotiated framework agreements), whilst the ETUC recalls that it was BusinessEurope which had refused to negotiate over the issue (c.f.
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