The EU’s top court has largely upheld a directive requiring member states to ensure “adequate” minimum wages, rejecting Denmark’s claim that Brussels had overreached on wage-setting powers.
In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismissed Denmark’s attempt to overturn the 2022 law, which Copenhagen argued gave the EU influence over pay levels that should be negotiated nationally. Sweden backed Denmark in the case.
Both governments maintained that wage-setting is a national matter, typically handled through collective bargaining between unions and employers, and falls outside EU legislative authority.
The court ruled that “most of the directive” is lawful and does not amount to “direct interference” in the right of association or collective bargaining.
However, it struck down two provisions: one defining what qualifies as an adequate minimum wage, and another preventing reductions in automatically indexed statutory wages. These, judges said, intruded too far into member-state control over pay.
