flash news
On 25 April 2024, following a complaint from the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Poland has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive.
EU Member States were given time to 17 December 2021 to adopt the necessary national regulations. According to the CJEU, “the wide scope of the regulations under the mentioned directive does not justify the lengthening time being spent on legislative work”. The CJEU also did not accept the difficulties that Poland raised in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic or the reception of war refugees from Ukraine.
As of 23 April, the acceptance of new applications for consular services for Ukrainian citizens, specifically men of conscription age (18-60) who are temporarily abroad, has been suspended, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reports in a press release.
The change is motivated by the need to bring the procedures in line with new regulations under Ukraine's Mobilisation Law, which are set to take effect on 18 May of this year. The new regulations are aimed at curbing evasion of military service. Among other things, they restrict the issuance of foreign passports without updating military registration documents.
With spring, we have overhauled our blog, and relaunched it with a new look and feel. News flashes pop out with more zing. We have added a timeline with key milestones in implementation of the Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970).
We invite you to surf our blog and sign up for our newsletters—general or targeted to pay transparency.
The premises for a draft bill on collective labour agreements and collective arrangements have been published in the list of the Council of Ministers’ legislative and scheduled work.
The new regulations are intended to regulate comprehensively the rules for entering into and registering collective labour agreements and collective arrangements. From the perspective of employers, the most important of these are:
- Specific term of an agreement. Two terms have been introduced for these agreements: 5 years for an enterprise-level agreement and 10 years for a multi-enterprise agreement. The parties will be able to extend an agreement’s duration for a further term.
- Open range of matters. The range of matters that may be covered by an agreement will be determined by the parties. This represents a significant broadening of the existing scope.
Work is still in progress on the amendment to the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict in Ukraine. A new draft was published on 17 April which includes the following changes (as compared to the previous version):
- The change of status from UKR to CUKR (where a person with UKR status receives a temporary residence card) will take place on the day he/she receives the card and not on the day he/she receives a temporary residence permit;
- The requirement for a minimum period of stay in Poland and a minimum number of permits will be abolished when applying for a residence card to reunite with family members;
On 17 April 2024, a draft law on the protection of whistleblowers was submitted to Parliament, which aims to implement the European Parliament and Council (EU) Directive 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019.
We wrote about the most important changes for employers with respect to the previous draft here and the text of the draft can be reviewed here.
The law is generally expected to enter into force three months after its announcement.