The Right to Information and Equal Pay at the Intersection of EU and National Law

This article was first published in Betriebs-Berater and is reproduced here with the publisher’s permission.

As is well known, the deadline for implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive expired on 7 June 2026 without the German legislator having adopted implementing legislation. The implications for employers have been widely discussed in recent weeks. However, the relationship between national law and EU law in the enforcement of equal pay, and in particular the interplay between the right to information and the right to equal pay, has been debated for many years.

In a decision dated 25 June 2020, the German Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) had to determine whether a freelance worker could rely on the right to information under the German Pay Transparency Act (Entgelttransparenzgesetz, EntgTranspG), even though the Act expressly limits its scope to employees. The BAG granted the right to information, holding that the claimant qualified as a worker-like person (arbeitnehmerähnliche Person) and therefore fell within the autonomous concept of “worker” under EU law. The Court considered this EU law concept to be decisive, even though, at the time, EU law did not yet provide for a specific right to information. According to the BAG, because the EntgTranspG serves to safeguard the primary EU law right to equal pay, its scope must be determined in accordance with EU law principles.

Read the full article here (only in German): Auskunftsanspruch und Equal Pay im Spannungsfeld von EU-Recht und nationalem Recht - Online Portal von Der Betrieb.