The EU is hoping to ease business expansion across the single market – but Europe’s unions worry about the price this will carry for labour rights and remuneration if employers can choose to register their business thousands of kilometres from where their workers are based.
The 28th Regime, also known as ‘EU Inc’., was initially expected to facilitate the expansion of small-scale businesses and start-ups across the bloc, but is now being expanded to affect any EU-based enterprise.
As European Council ministers gather to discuss the competitive regulation on Thursday morning (24 September), a rally of European trade unions are expected to assemble outside to call for safeguarding measures for labour rights in the new policy.
The European Trade Union confederation (ETUC) is leading the chase, as they fear the policy will open a regime-shopping loophole wherein companies could choose to change their country of registration to a member state hosting “a lower minimum wage and weaker collective bargaining, and employ their workers on lower conditions.”
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According to ETUC’s general secretary Esther Lynch, the regulation could be a tipping point to “start a race to the bottom in pay and conditions across the continent.”
Joined by Belgian unions such as Synova and the confederation of Christian Trade Unions, ETUC is expected to mobilise around 5,000 workers...
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