Ministers failed to reach a deal last week over the platform workers’ directive, as concerns over the triggering of the legal presumption of employment and its derogations remain, Commissioner Nicolas Schmit told EURACTIV in an interview.

The Directive, first proposed by the Commission in December 2021, introduces a legal presumption of employment for misclassified ‘self-employed’ platform workers. It also seeks to regulate algorithmic management in the workplace – a first at the EU level.

Up to 5.5 million EU platform workers could be misclassified, out of 28 million in total, the Commission estimates. This number is expected to reach 43 million by 2025. However, a year in, the file has proven divisive.

“We all agree that something must be done for platform workers,” Commissioner Schmit told EURACTIV. Yet the complexity of the file, and the impacts it would have on employment law, a national competence, has seen national delegations greatly divided at the EU Council over the ambition and scope of the text.

The split is between “those who would rather have a clear and strong legislation” and those who believe sector growth comes first and want to see the legal presumption gone, Schmit said.

Seven countries – including Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – voted the latest Czech compromise down, on the grounds that it did not “represent a step forward”, in the words of Spanish Labour and Social Economy minister Yolanda Diaz. They...

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