PTK, the Swedish Council for Negotiation and Cooperation, sees great value in the fact that the matter has been examined. The ability of the Court to assess whether the EU legislature has acted within the legislative powers conferred upon it by the Member States is essential to the EU legal system.
We welcome that the Court has now clarified how the EU may legislate in matters relating to pay and the promotion of collective bargaining.
In light of the Court’s decision, we will now carefully examine the judgment to assess its scope and implications.
Safeguarding negotiation models and collective agreements
Sweden has a long and strong tradition of autonomous negotiations between the social partners. A prerequisite for this is political trust, strong trade union rights, and the space to regulate working conditions through collective agreements. We have, and will continue to, advocate for the EU to respect this model.
Decent working conditions
We support social Europe. We believe that all workers in the Member States have the right to good working conditions and a wage that provides a decent standard of living.
At the same time, Member States have different systems for regulating wages, and it is important that well-functioning models are respected, both those based on statutory minimum wages and those founded on collective agreements.
We firmly believe that defending trade union rights and promoting the capacity and autonomy of the social partners to negotiate are essential for a social and competitive Europe.
Background
The directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union (2022/2041) was adopted by the EU in 2022 to ensure fair wages for workers. The directive has faced strong criticism in Sweden and Denmark, where wages traditionally are regulated through collective agreements without state intervention. Denmark therefore brought an action for annulment before the Court of Justice of the European Union in January 2023, with support from Sweden. The core issue was whether the directive contravenes Article 153(5) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which excludes pay from the EU’s legislative competence. The Advocate General’s opinion from January 2025 recommended that the directive be annulled.
PTK – the council for negotiation and cooperation, is a Swedish joint organization of 26 member unions, representing more than one million salaried employees in the private sector.
