European Union member states miss deadline for pay transparency directive

Most European Union member states will fail to meet the Sunday deadline for incorporating the EU directive on pay transparency into national law. According to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), only three countries—Slovakia, Italy, and Lithuania—have successfully transposed the directive despite having been granted an extra year for implementation. Nearly half of the member states have not yet published a draft national law, while about one-quarter have drafts that are unlikely to be finalized by next year. Poland, the Czech Republic, Malta, and Belgium have reported partial implementation. A group including the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Finland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece plans to delay the process until 2027. Meanwhile, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Slovenia have neither published a draft nor provided a timeline. Sweden has expressed formal opposition to the transposition. Trade unions attribute these delays to lobbying efforts by employers' organizations that view the law as a regulatory burden.