Up to five times more or less: that’s how much the minimum wage varies between Bulgaria (477.04 euros) and Luxembourg (2,570.93 euros). The wide pay gap across the EU is detailed by Eurostat data, and it is not without consequences: “The main weakness of minimum wages systems across Europe is that they are very diverse: some Member states mainly rely on minimum wage legislation; some others (a minority) do not have any law and rely exclusively on collective agreements; some systems use a mix the two methods”, sums up Luca Ratti, Associate professor in European and comparative labour law.
He and his team are working on the issues of in-work poverty and minimum wages. He coordinated the Horizon2020 project Working, Yet Poor. Reducing in-work poverty is one of the main objectives of the European directive on adequate minimum wages. EU Member States are required to transpose the directive by November this year. Adopted in October 2022, it aims to promote adequate statutory minimum wages in Europe by helping to improve working and living conditions for workers, writes the Council of the European Union.
It remains to be seen how the Member states will implement the text. This question is at the heart of the Conference on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU, organised on 13 and 14 June by the Department of Law. Researchers from a dozen European universities will be sharing their analyses at this event supported also by the national Research Fund (FNR) and the University of Vienna.
A legal challenge
And the challenges are numerous, starting with the legal aspects. “The EU treaties mention that the subject of ‘salary’ is not part of the competences that Member states share with the EU,” explains Luca Ratti.
This explains why the directive does not prescribe a specific minimum wage level to be achieved. Instead, it invites Member states with statutory minimum wages to set and update these amounts according to precise criteria.
The question of the minimum wage opens countless research questions. Luca Ratti lists for instance “the philosophical and moral justification to have adequate minimum wages, the evolution of industrial relations systems in the years to come, the impact on the so-called ‘European social union’. i.e. the approach of the EU in the social field, to name only a few”.
Photo: © Bogdan Hoyaux
