EU Minimum Wage Legislation Can Help Reform Social Policy amid Deepening Divide between East and West

Oliver Röpke is the president of the Workers' Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)

The proposal for a minimum wage directive currently under discussion is of key political importance. It is the Commission's social policy flagship initiative, announced by President von der Leyen at the beginning of her term of office. The proposal is not free from controversy, as expected in such an important measure.

At its recent plenary session, the EESC backed with a broad majority a favourable opinion supporting it, but was nonetheless also witness to diverging views. However, with earlier doubts on the legal grounds for action cleared by the Council's legal service, solutions can be found to avoid any negative interference with national collective bargaining systems.

What Europe do we want?

European trade unions agree that cases such as Laval or Viking cannot happen again. But the fact that they took place shows that the EU's 'interference' in social matters has been with us for a long time. It would be a mistake to think otherwise when monetary policies are decided at the EU level and many economic and social ones are conditioned by common European decisions.

The question, therefore, is not if Europe should play any role in social policy. Rather, it is what kind of role it should be. Do we want an EU where the four freedoms are used to trample over social rights? Or do we want policies that ensure justice and convergence, in a completed single market that ensures the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the EU?

The need for action at EU-level

Europe needs to make sure that workers benefit from adequate minimum wages, that poverty wages end and that wage setting...