Quick Hits

• The European Parliament and Council of the European Union’s provisional agreement on amending Directive 2009/38/EC on the European Works Council would have a significant impact on how global organisations engage with workers across the European Union and European Economic Area.
• The scope of the directive would be expanded, with legacy exemptions set to be revoked, requiring broader company participation.
• Existing agreements would face mandatory updates, and definitions are being sharpened to reflect modern business structures and cross-border impacts.

The forthcoming amendments are anticipated to have a noticeable effect on compliance requirements and the general structure for interacting with EWCs. A clearer procedural framework for establishing and consulting EWCs and clarification on key definitions are among some of the anticipated revisions. These changes will be particularly significant for international organisations that have at least 1,000 employees in two or more EU/EEA member states.

Some of the key elements contained in the provisional agreement are set out below.

Removal of Exemptions for “Old” EWCs

Currently, organisations that already had transnational information and consultation agreements (legacy agreements) in place before September 23, 1996 (i.e., before Directive 2009/38/EC or EWC agreements under Article 13 of Recast Directive 94/45/EC) are exempt from Directive 2009/38/EC.

When these “old” agreements expire, organisations may wish to update their existing agreements; however, there will not be an automatic obligation to establish an EWC.

Similarly, existing agreements (i.e., made under Directive 94/45 or Directive 2009/38) may require amendments at the request of the EWC or employee representatives. These amendments may include, for example, clarification on the allocation of financial resources, meeting frequency (which would be required at least twice per year), enhanced confidentiality rules, and mechanisms to ensure fair gender representation.

Gender Representation

The proposal establishes a gender representation objective, with a target of 40 percent of seats on the EWC, the committee, and the negotiating body to be allocated to each gender. While this would not be a mandatory obligation for the creation of such bodies, failure to meet this target would have to be justified through a formal, written explanation outlining the reasons why this objective cannot be met.

Definitions

• “Transnational matters”: Under the proposal, this term would extend to circumstances where proposed measures have a direct impact in one member state and are “reasonably expected” to have consequential effects on employees in another member state.
• “Consultation”: Changes to this definition would require information to be provided in a manner allowing an “in-depth assessment of their possible impact” and enabling the EWC to receive a written response from company management, as well as the employee.
• “Dominant influence”: There is set to be a new determining factorof “dominant influence” for identifying a group of undertakings. According to the proposal, when identical business processes are implemented under a common business name, as in franchise or license agreements, actions or decisions that impact the relationship between businesses may be considered as a “group.”

Financial Support

Under the proposal, EWC agreements must specifically cover training for EWC members and fair expert fees (i.e., the cap of only one expert paid by central management will be removed). The agreement requires that the organisation pay incurred costs involved in the establishment and operation of an EWC, such as reasonable legal charges, training costs, and travel/meeting expenses. Additionally, under the agreement, EWC members must not lose their income as a result of taking part in EWC activities. To maintain compliance during the transposition period, these duties apply to pre-Directive 2009/38/EC agreements and may necessitate a formal revision of current EWC agreements.

Penalties

It will remain the decision of member states to impose and enforce appropriate sanctions, taking into consideration an organisation’s yearly turnover for financial penalties. However, the agreement does clarify that an assessment of “appropriate sanctions” would take into consideration the gravity, duration, consequences, intentional impact, and nature of the offence.

It is generally anticipated that this agreement will represent the last stage of the legislative draft’s content, with only minor changes likely to be made during the formal approval. A draft of Directive 2009/38/EC was published in document ST 9565/2025 INIT on June 2, 2025. Following this, the revised EWC Directive 2009/38/EC is expected to be adopted by the end of 2025 or early 2026, following a first reading in the European Parliament currently scheduled for September 8, 2025.