This Friday, the opposition of several European governments prevented the approval of the political agreement on the new directive to strengthen the rights of digital platform workers. The consensus between the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, reached last week, has been left up in the air due to the reluctance of these nations towards certain parts of it. Thus postponing the European ‘Rider Law’, which needs the approval of the Twenty-Seven and the plenary session of the European Chamber.
The Spanish presidency of the European Parliament, which ends its mandate this December, has withdrawn the item from the agenda scheduled for this Friday after confirming that it did not have the qualified majority to approve the file. In this way, Belgium will be in charge of trying to generate an agreement from now on, by replacing Spain in the presidency on January 1.
“There was a solid majority that was opposed,” diplomatic sources have informed Europa Press, pointing out that the criticism is aimed at the fact that it is enough to identify two of the five control criteria included in the standard to identify a platform as “employee.” adorable”. However, according to different sources consulted, the brake on the adoption of the norm does not mean its rejection since it has not been put to a vote, but rather the file has been put on hold after hearing the doubts of several delegations and it was decided to leave it to Belgium will seek ways to reach an agreement with the European Parliament starting in January.
The political agreement was reached on Wednesday of last week between the negotiators of the European Parliament and those of the Council, led by the Spanish delegation, and establishes the first rules at the European level to clarify the employment status of workers on digital platforms such as Uber or Deliveryoo.
The first objective is to ensure that the rights that correspond to their “real work” are recognized, whether self-employed or salaried, through a series of criteria such as schedule restrictions, remuneration limits or supervision by electronic means. When the Twenty-Seven agreed on their negotiating position last June, the mandate went ahead with the abstention of Spain, which then demonstrated that the ambition of the directive was “insufficient.”
Díaz charges against the conservatives
After the stop of the Twenty-Seven, the second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has reacted through social networks with a message that points to “the extreme right and the liberals” for preventing the approval of the directive, aa despite the fact that the norm “ensured new rights to 30 million workers.”
“The conservative and liberal governments of the EU are preventing the approval of the Digital Platforms Directive promoted by the Spanish Presidency of the EU,” the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, has also lamented on social networks.
Pérez Rey has defended the European ‘Rider Law’ as a “pioneer” law that “granted rights to some 30 million workers and 5.5 million false self-employed workers” and has stressed that the agreement between the Spanish presidency and the MEPs “counted with the support of all political groups in the European Parliament except the extreme right.”
