European Commission proposals to improve the quality of traineeships in the EU - a BusinessEurope position paper

Key messages

• BusinessEurope continues to state its opposition to an EU directive on traineeships. A reinforcing of the existing Council Recommendation alone would have been sufficient to address perceived issues around the quality of traineeships in the EU, especially given the widely acknowledged lack of data on open-market traineeships and the limited evidence base for proposing a directive.
• Significant changes need to be made to the existing proposal for a directive. This should start by making it clear that the proposal covers open-market traineeships only. Compulsory traineeships and those that serve as career guidance and education, as part of training and studies, should be excluded from the directive. Furthermore, Member States particularities in the organisation and legal structure of traineeships, i.e. whether or not a traineeship takes place under an employment relationship, and regulations on the protection of trainees already in place, must be better taken into account.
• The proposal needs to better take into account the role and autonomy of social partners by clearly stating that social partners have room for negotiating solutions they consider best suited for trainees, at all the appropriate levels, including the possibility to deviate from the directive by jointly setting working conditions for trainees in the case of traineeships that fall under a contract of employment.