The ETUC takes issue with the following points:

 The decision to adjust wage setting mechanisms and how to do so lies with the social partners themselves. It is not up to governments and certainly not up to the Commission to decide on a reform of the wage setting machinery. The autonomy of social partners to bargain extends way beyond the Commission’s call of simply ‘consulting’ social partners.

 Wages must not be caught within competitive ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ strategies. In the integrated marketplace of Europe, member states should avoid competing against each other on the basis of wages since gains in wage-levels in some member states will be reflected in competitive losses in others.

 Wages and collective bargaining strategies should instead reflect productivity and inflation, as well as the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’, while reversing the trend of high and rising inequalities.

The ETUC calls upon the European Council to change track and to consider wages as an engine for growth and jobs and not as the enemy of the economy.