Contact-tracing apps to combat the Covid-19 pandemic have increasingly been mentioned as useful tools to accompany and contribute to a return to normality despite the many ethical and legal questions they raise. The pressure exerted by business circles and lobbies to restart and ‘save the economy’... Find out more

Letterbox companies are legal entities set up by businesses to benefit from a regulatory framework in a jurisdiction in which they have little or no material operations. They enable ‘regime shopping’ for lower taxes, wages, labour standards and social contributions, as well as for different legal... Find out more

The European Commission published a consultation document with a view to take legislative action to establish fair minimum wages in Europe. In this policy brief, the researchers argue for a pragmatic approach of taking the ‘in-work-poverty-wage’ threshold of 60 per cent of the national full-time... Find out more

This policy brief considers the lack of European Works Councils through a Belgian perspective. It discusses Belgian companies who are currently engaged in establishing one or have developed ‘functionally equivalent’ structures. The remaining companies are confronted with serious obstacles to... Find out more

This policy brief considers what is the scope for addressing the challenges linked to irregular work schedules in EU social and employment policy. It first describes EU competence in the areas of work and employment conditions in order to assess what the EU institutions can de jure do to address... Find out more

This policy brief details the necessary amounts for dignified living according to official EU figures and the perceptions of Europeans, as well as the actual disposable income of families in the lower part of the income distribution across EU member states. The research shows that households not... Find out more

This policy brief assesses the impact of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, ten years on. The Charter is intended to guide EU institutions, particularly the CJEU, in recognising and promoting the social rights of EU citizens and workers. The briefing, which is based on a book-length... Find out more

The proposed EU company law package, which was published in April 2018 by the European Commission, seeks to encourage cross-border company mobility while at the same time protecting stakeholder interests. The ETUI’s GOODCORP network of company law experts has identified three areas where the package... Find out more

This policy brief evaluates the backdrop to the European Commission’s proposals for the EU’s coming seven-year budget round, or Multi-annual Financial Framework. As usual, the negotiations are a careful balancing act between net contributors to the EU budget and its main beneficiaries and are... Find out more

This policy brief examines the development of and background to the 2018 Posting of Workers Directive. Arguably, the new Directive illustrates the uneasy development of a European social dimension and marks a sea-change to the previous approach, which can be attributed to a change of preferences in... Find out more