The latest agreement on the Platform Work Directive provides less legal clarity than the current situation and fails to harmonize similar rules and protections for platforms and workers across the EU’s single market, says Thomas Prusa. he writes on Euractiv.
- Thomas Prusa is Vice-President of the Czech Chamber of Commerce and Industry and former Czech Secretary of State for EU Affairs.
Over the past two years, a heated debate has raged in Brussels over whether taxi drivers, couriers delivering food and translators who get work from online platforms are independent contractors or traditional employees.
Clearly defined to establish a clear and understandable EU-wide system that, despite differing sentiments, ultimately allows us all to ensure a harmonized approach for both workers and businesses. I wanted the rules to be set.
Instead, the Belgian Presidency has proposed a nonsensical proposal that provides no legal certainty and that boils down to “Let’s create an EU Directive that tells each individual to decide for themselves how to apply the contents of the Directive.” Proposed. .
As it stands, the legal presumption of employment, the new mechanism introduced in the Directive to reclassify self-employed platform workers who deserve to become full-time employees as such, is watered down to little more than a declaration of intent. It has become. .
There are now few criteria that can be used in a harmonized manner across the EU to imply subordination and give rise to legal presumptions. Currently, the Directive only requires all member states to establish legal preconditions for their national systems, with little indication of how it will work in practice.
The point of Europe’s regulatory framework should be to give people the same protection whether they are couriers transporting people or food in Portugal, the Netherlands or the Czech Republic. Only then will the new European regulations make sense.
However, Belgium was unable to find the majority needed for common European rules. Instead of taking this proposal off the table, they will change nothing (as it is still up to each country to set its own rules), but it will appear as if the presidency has secured a political victory. I came up with this idea. A few months before the EU elections.
And what’s the point of cluttering the legal system with unnecessary regulations and only exacerbating the already stifling bureaucracy for European companies?
Governments in most EU countries are under pressure from businesses due to increasingly complex bureaucracies and the failure to realize the basic premise of the single market, where the same rules apply equally to all countries. Masu.
The promise of the same rules across the board is a key reason why companies and unions supported the creation of a single rulebook for platform workers. And both sides can easily figure out who is truly self-employed, enjoying the freedom to drive, distribute, translate, and create graphics for various platforms, and who is an employee worthy of a full-time contract. I wanted to be able to make decisions.
Yes, we have had tough discussions about what exactly the legal standard of presumption should be. But we wanted business operations to be predictable for both parties.
In the end, the Belgian president submitted a proposal without any substance.
On Friday (16 February), member states will have a chance to show whether they are serious about supporting the EU’s single market. The meeting of EU ambassadors scheduled to vote on the directive will decide whether to accept the failed document, which is already opposed by trade unions and platforms alike.
I sincerely hope that the ambassador’s message gets across that we need to understand the rules correctly to protect workers and provide clear guidance to businesses. And these rules must be the same across Europe so that the protection of fundamental rights does not depend on which country you live in.
