CESI welcomes European Parliament endorsement of a revised EWC Directive

For CESI, the vote is an important milestone in strengthening transnational information and consultation rights for workers across Europe, and calls on the Council to swiftly follow suite with a confirmation vote too, ensuring that the directive will be formally published as soon as possible.

The approved text includes several advances that reflect CESI’s long-standing priorities on the file:

• End of exemptions. Under the revised directive, companies that so far enjoyed a special exemption status based on old voluntary pre-1996 directive arrangements will in the future fall within the scope of the directive and be subject to the new, tighter rules.

• Sharper clarity on transnational matters. The compromise text in the revised directive now specifies that decisions or measures affecting employees across borders “in a substantial way” will trigger EWC information and consultation obligations.

• Limits on confidentiality restrictions. The text requires that non-disclosure or withholding of information by the company management may only be justified under objective criteria and only for as long as the reasons persist, thus curbing abusive uses of “confidentiality” issues by company managements to avoid genuine consultation.

• Strengthened access to justice and dissuasive sanctions. The agreement improves the right of workers’ representatives to judicial or administrative recourse, ensures cost coverage for legal representation of EWCs and mandates that penalties for non-compliance with rules by the management be effective, proportional and dissuasive.

• Better funding, material and logistical support. The revised text more clearly obliges company management to provide to EWCs adequate financial, material and legal resources including for meetings, travel and legal advice.

• Gender balance progression. The compromise strengthens aspirational goals and guidance toward more gender-balanced representation in EWCs.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “With today’s vote, the European Parliament has taken a decisive step toward building stronger, more credible instruments of worker involvement in transnational enterprises. This agreement – abolishing outdated exemptions, tightening consultation standards and reinforcing access to justice and resource support – promises to move EWCs from symbolic bodies more to structures capable of real influence.”

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