The Directive “establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community” was adopted by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on 11 March 2002. By March this year Member States were required to implement the Directive in national legislation and lay down procedures through which companies would have to inform their employees about their employer’s economic situation and to inform and consult them on issues concerned with employment and work organisation. As is the case with other Directives, at this point by no means all Members States have completed their homework in this area.

In contrast to the EWC and SE Directives, this legislation lays down minimum standards at national level. It covers companies with at least 50 employees or establishments with at least 20 (Member States can choose which threshold should apply to them). In countries where employees already have extensive information and consultation rights, the Directive is unlikely to result in any fundamental innovations. Its fairly vague provisions, which give Member States substantial room for manoeuvre in their practical implementation, should not be misused to reduce existing national levels of employee involvement, where they are higher.

The Directive is of greater interest in the countries whose industrial relations have a more “voluntarist” character, and which until now have not had much in the way of guaranteed rights for employee involvement. This is the case in the UK and Ireland, as well as some of the new Member States (including Poland and the three Baltic states). In these countries some significant changes will be necessary to take account of the new Directive. EU lawmakers have in fact conceded to these countries that the employee thresholds can be higher for them for the first three years after the Directive comes into force. The UK, for example, has taken advantage of this – from April 2005 the Directive will apply to companies with 150 or more employees. The threshold will fall to 100 or more in April 2007, and only in April 2008 will the 50-plus level, set out in the Directive, apply.

The issue has become particularly sensitive in some central and eastern European countries. Unions there fear that the Directive could be misused by employers to weaken their position in companies by setting up “trade-union free” works councils in competition with unions.

Source: Michael Stollt - Briefing in Mitbestimmung - international edition 2005


Documents / Links

• European Commission website (Link)



• TUC information on implementation in the UK (Link)



• EIRO study on national structures for employee representation in the EU-15 (“Works councils, Workplace representation and participation structures” (direct link to download)

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