Written question – The EU directive that in practice undermines the signing of collective agreements – E-001731/2025

Question for written answer  E-001731/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos (NI), Kostas Papadakis (NI)

The Nea Dimokratia Government in Greece appears to acknowledge ‘the need to meet the target of 80% coverage of workers by collective agreements’ and invokes Directive (EU) 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages in the European Union.

The directive, which is falsely represented as a means of ‘strengthening collective bargaining’, does not lay down any obligation to draw up collective agreements. Its only ‘obligation’ is for governments to draw up ‘action plans’. Moreover, it states that nothing in the directive may be construed as imposing an obligation on any Member State to declare any collective agreement universally applicable.

In light of the above, can the Commission answer the following:

• 1.What view does it take of the fact that Law 5163/2024 of the Greek Government, which fully transposes Directive (EU) 2022/2041, has led to poverty-level minimum wages and at the same time increased employer arbitrariness and organised planning by large employers to refuse to sign collective agreements or to avoid being bound by existing collective agreements through various arrangements (e.g. a refusal to set up employers’ organisations or to integrate them into employers’ organisations, etc.)?
• 2.What view does it take of the fact that the target of ‘80% coverage of workers by collective agreements’, supposedly pursued by the directive, is not a binding objective, since the directive does not require that collective agreements are universally applicable, nor does it oblige employers to sign and implement them, and nor does it provide any monitoring or sanction mechanism for countries or companies that infringe workers’ rights, including the right to collective bargaining with employers?

Submitted: 30.4.2025