EU Employment Law Report Q1 - Q2 2025

Published

Jul 04 2025

Reading Time

1 minute

Contacts

Head of Employment
Belgium

I am a Senior Counsel in our International Employment group in Brussels with over 40 years' experience of advising on contentious and non-contentious issues in employment and benefits, including high profile employment litigation, boardroom advisory work, strategic change management, industrial relations, compliance and reward issues.

Cecilia Lahaye

Counsel
Belgium

As Counsel in our International HR Services group in Brussels, I have in-depth experience in employment and civil law litigation, with a practice that spans an array of employment and social security law matters, focusing on dismissals, compensation and benefits and workplace health and safety hazards.

Anke Istace

Associate
Belgium

I am an associate in our Employment team in Brussels. I advise clients on a wide range of employment and social security law matters. I assist businesses with all legal aspects of the employment journey, from hiring to firing, in both individual and collective matters, focusing primarily on companies with international activities.

Practices

In this report, our Brussels team of Bird & Bird’s International Employment Group review the key EU employment law and social policy developments during the first half of 2025, under the Polish presidency of the European Council. Our team of experts take an in-depth look at the following highlights:

Legislative and Regulatory Activity:

Overall slowdown due to geopolitical tensions and economic instability. Key developments include:

Progress on the draft Traineeship Directive.
A compromise agreement on revising the 2009 European Works Council (EWC) Directive.
Business focus on the AI Act’s workplace implications and the transposition of the Gender Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970).

Judicial Developments:
European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings on:

Equal treatment and discrimination cases.
A significant French case on collective redundancy rules (Directive 98/59).
Political attention centered on the Advocate-General’s opinion in the Denmark v European Parliament and Council case.

Download our EU Employment Law Report Q1 - Q2 2025 here