EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Law and Regulations, Legislation, Markets and Companies

The committee's members decided to send their findings to the European Commission, noting that before submitting the proposal, the Commission failed to hold comprehensive consultations as required by EU agreements, and consequently did not find out social partners' position. The Saeima committee is also going to include other arguments against the proposed amendments to the Posted Workers Directive.

"Since until now dialogue with the European Commission on this issue has not been successful enough, the committee decided to join a number of other EU member states, by launching the so called yellow card procedure and pointing to flaws in this draft directive," said the committee's chairwoman Lolita Cigane (Unity).

The proposed amendments to the EU directive are intended to prevent unfair competition and ensure that employees receive equal pay for the same job in the same country. The Latvian parliament committee concluded, however, that the proposals ignore the fact that not all EU member states are equally competitive and economically developed, which means that their wage levels and social guarantees can differ.

Cigane indicated earlier that "there are quite a few small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Latvia that are innovative and work with new technologies and specific methods. These companies may need to post their employees to work in another member state, sometimes for just a few days. The requirement to apply the other EU member states' pay regulations to these employees would undermine the Latvian SMEs' competitiveness. because often these enterprises are only in the stage of starting their business or testing technologies, and they do not have the necessary resources to meet the requirement".

The Latvian parliament committee is also going to argue as part of the political dialogue with the European Commission that the proposal to amend the Posted Workers Directive are premature as the directive is only in the stage of transposition.