EU Parliament backs Radtke... but with reduced majorirty

Even though our European newsletter is on a Christmas break... we thought you would be interested to know that (on Thursday, December 19th, 2024) the European Parliament voted to authorise negotiations with the European Commission and Council on the rewrite of the EWC Directive, with the “Radtke Report II” as the negotiating mandate for the Parliament’s team. This now means that negotiations are likely to open in January.

However, what was surprising about the Parliament vote was how close it was: 300 for, 254 against, and 21 abstentions. 

Add the against and the abstentions together and it was close to 50/50. The majority of Radtke’s own political grouping, the EPP, voted against. With a split Parliament vote, and his own party not on board, Radtke's proposals for change will have a very much weaker hand in the trialogue negotiations that he would have wanted. It is unlikely that he will succeed in pushing the Commission and the Council to accept his demands that EWCs can ask for injunction and that courts can impose GDPR-size fines. However, it is inevitable that the “Article 13 exemption” will go as all three trialogue parties are agreed on this.

Over the past months, we in HR Policy Global/Europe have been in ongoing contact with members of the European Parliament sympathetic to business interests to stress the dangers of the Radtke agenda. While we did not succeed in blocking Radtke’s agenda, we believe that the closeness of the Parliamentary vote showed that our efforts had some success. 

It is important that HR Policy Global member companies continue to stress to national government directly, and through employer and industry associations, the need for realism and pragmatism when it comes to rewriting the EWC Directive. 

During our European Academy training program in Sitges/Barcelona next April, we will examine what a rewritten EWC Directive will mean for undertakings with EWCs, especially those with A13 arrangements.

As said above, we expect trialogue negotiations to open in January. We would expect them to conclude sometime in the first half of the year. This would mean a rewritten Directive becoming law in the first half of 2027.

On Friday, December 20th the Council published a paper comparing the positions of the Council and the Parliament against the Commission's original text. For EWC nerds like us, this is a must-read. 

This all points to the EWC triaogue negotiations resulting in pragmatic, not radical, changes.