Source: European Parliament
Transposition of directives into national legal orders is essential to ensure that citizens in Member States enjoy the rights conferred upon them by the directives, including workers’ rights.
In this case, the failure by Spain to transpose Directive (EU) 2019/1152[1] in time means that Spain lacks a set of measures to confer on workers the rights enshrined under this directive.
These are, among others, the right to be informed in writing on their basic working conditions at the start of their employment relationship and a number of minimum working conditions requirements (such as maximum duration of the probationary period, right to parallel employment or the right to have minimum predictability at work).
For this reason, in September 2022, the Commission opened an infringement proceeding against Spain[2] for failing to communicate national transposition measures, by addressing a letter of formal notice to the Spanish authorities. In June 2023, the Commission further adopted a reasoned opinion against Spain.
The Commission is currently in a dialogue with the Spanish authorities concerning the state of transposition of the directive into Spanish legislation. A decision on the next step in the procedure will be taken in due course.
- [1] OJ L 186, 11.7.2019, p. 105-121, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1152/oj/eng
- [2] https://ec.europa.eu/atwork/applying-eu-law/infringements-proceedings/infringement_decisions/?lang_code=en&langCode=EN&version=v1&typeOfSearch=byCase&refId=INFR(2022)0354&page=1&size=10&order=desc&sortColumns=refId&activeCase=true