Timeline - Adequate minimum wages

The Council of the EU gave its final green light to new EU rules that will promote the adequacy of statutory minimum wages. The directive helps to achieve decent working and living conditions for employees in Europe.

The new EU law on adequate minimum wages:

• establishes procedures for the adequacy of statutory minimum wages
• promotes collective bargaining on wage setting
• enhances the effective access to minimum wage protection for those workers who are entitled to a minimum wage under national law

• Council adopts EU law on adequate minimum wages (press release, 4 October 2022)

The Council adopted a directive on minimum wages which sets a procedural framework to promote adequate minimum wages across the EU and, specifically, to:

• promote collective bargaining on wage setting
• promote adequate levels of statutory minimum wages
• improve the effective access to minimum wage protection of all workers

• Minimum wages: Council and European Parliament reach provisional agreement on new EU law (7 June 2022)

The Council reached a general approach on a draft EU law on minimum wages.

In order to improve people's working and living conditions, this draft law establishes a framework to:

• promote adequate levels of statutory minimum wages
• promote collective bargaining on wage setting
• improve the effective access to minimum wage protection of those workers who are entitled to a minimum wage

• Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, 14-15 June 2021
• Progress report - Proposal for a directive on adequate minimum wages

The Portuguese presidency informed ministers about the state of play of the directive on adequate minimum wages. Ministers also had the opportunity to exchange views on

• the improvements they expected the directive to deliver
• the critical elements of the proposal

• Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, 6-7 December 2021
• Council agrees on mandate for negotiations on a EU framework on adequate minimum wages

The presidency and the Commission provided information on the proposal for a directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union. The proposal seeks to place four main obligations on member states:

• to promote collective bargaining, in particular on wage setting
• to respect a number of procedural obligations, if and when member states set/update statutory minimum wages, including to assess their adequacy
• take measures to enhance the effective access to minimum wage protection of workers who are entitled to a minimum wage under national law
• collect data and report it to the Commission so that the latter can monitor the coverage and adequacy of minimum wage protection

• Video conference of employment and social policy ministers, 3 December 2020
• Proposal for a directive on a framework for adequate minimum wages in the EU