News Flash

The Portuguese prime minister has announced new austerity measures to keep the country on track with its bailout programme. Employee social security contributions are set to increase from 11% to 18% in 2013 whilst employer contributions will decrease from 23.75%

The German region of Bremen has set a regional minimum wage which applies to the entire public sector and all companies delivering services to, or receiving funds from, the state. The rate – 8.50 euros an hour – came into

The Polish government has approved a draft amendment to the Labour Code that shortens the process of starting up a business. Under the proposals a tax identification number will be issued by the tax office within three days of an

An amendment to the Lithuanian Labour Code will take effect on September 1st 2012. From this date employers will be required to inform the Territorial Offices of the State Social Insurance Fund of the starting date of new employees not

The Spanish government has reduced the size threshold for companies falling within the special redundancy levy system. All companies with 100+ employees (formerly 500+) must now pay financial contributions to the Spanish Treasury if they make collective redundancies involving employees

The Labour Court of Spain’s Santander province has declared the dismissal of ten agency workers as invalid after they were made redundant due to their participation in trade union activities. The company was ordered to reinstate the employees and compensate

The Irish government has ended the restrictions on the employment of workers from Romania and Bulgaria. The move was prompted by a sharp reduction in the number of work permit applications received from nationals from both states.

Die Europäische Union (EU) und die Ukraine haben einen Nachtrag zu dem aktuellen Abkommen über Visaerleichterungen unterzeichnet, die die Kategorien von Personen erweitert, die für das vereinfachte Verfahren für die Beantragung von Visas für Reisen in die EU-Mitgliedstaaten qualifiziert sind.

L’ Unione Europea (UE) e l’Ucraina hanno firmato un addendum all’accordo vigente riguardante la facilitazione del rilascio dei visti, che estende le categorie di soggetti che beneficiano della procedura semplificata per ottenere il visto per viaggiare nei Stati membri dell’UE.

L’Union européenne (UE) et l’Ukraine ont signé un avenant au systeme de facilitation des visas en cours. L’amendement élargit les catégories de personnes admissibles à la procédure simplifiée d’obtention de visas pour se rendre à l’UE. L’amendement porte sur les

The controversial Italian Law (92/2012) on unfair dismissals and fixed-term contracts has now become law. Statutory paternity leave has also been introduced for the first time. Fathers are now required to take one day off work on full pay within

A recent decision by the French Supreme Court has changed the position regarding an employee who has been unable to take their annual leave entitlement.
Previously, an employee who brought legal proceedings claiming that their employer had prevented them taking

Further details have merged about the new Belgian collective bargaining agreement (no.103). This makes several additional restrictions on access to ‘time credit’ by raising service and age thresholds.
The new provisions distinguish between ‘motivated’ and ‘non-motivated’ time credit. ‘Non-motivated’ time

According to the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) average hourly earnings in the Irish Republic were virtually unchanged over the year to Q1 2012. More recently unions have rejected a proposed pay freeze at Allied Irish Bank and a staged

The new Belgian national agreement 103 (replacing the existing collective agreement 77bis) on time-credits will come into force in September 2012.  Employees will be entitled to three calendar years time credit for the care of young children, assistance with sick