EU Court of Justice judgment on the Validity of the Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages
The Court of Justice of the European Union has today broadly confirmed the validity of the EU Directive on adequate minimum wages. However, the Court annulled the elements in article 5 defining the criteria for adequacy in article 5.2 as well as the reference made to these criteria in article 5.1 last sentence. Moreover, the Court has annulled the part of article 5.3 making the use of an automatic mechanism for indexation adjustments of statutory minimum wages allowed only provided that the application of that mechanism does not lead to a decrease of the statutory minimum wage. In the view of the Court, these articles amounted to a direct interference with pay, thus a breach of the Treaties.