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Not so fast on that Christmas present for precarious gig workers in the EU: A political deal announced mid month<\/a>, which aims to bolster platform workers rights across the European Union by establishing a legal presumption of employment, does not have the necessary qualified majority backing among Member States, it emerged today.<\/p>\n In an brief update to the European Council\u2019s online press release<\/a>, where it had trumpeted the earlier political deal on the file, the institution writes: \u201c[O]n 22 December 2023 the Spanish presidency concluded that the necessary majority on the provisional agreement among member states\u2019 representatives (Coreper) could not be reached. The Belgian presidency will resume negotiations with the European Parliament in order to reach an agreement on the final shape of the directive.\u201d<\/p>\n The development was picked up earlier by Bloomberg<\/a> and Euractiv<\/a> \u2014 which reported that the deal failed to secure a qualified majority in a Coreper held Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cNo formal vote was even held on the text, as it became clear there would be no majority,\u201d said Euractive, citing information it obtained that the Baltics, Czech Republic, France, Hungary and Italy \u201cformally said no to a deal they believed was too far gone from the Council\u2019s version of the directive\u201d.<\/p>\n France has been fingered as leading resistance to the agreement that was announced by exhausted parliamentary negotiators mid month, with the parliament\u2019s co-rappoteur on the file blaming opposition to the deal on French president Emmanuel Macron<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n Depending on changes demanded by blocking Member States, the file could be forced back into the EU\u2019s three-way lawmaking negotiation process, known as trilogues, where co-legislators in the European Parliament, Council and the Commission would have to try, once again, to find a compromise they can all agree on.<\/p>\n However if trilogues have to be reopened in January they would come with the added complication of a hard deadline, as European elections are looming.<\/p>\n A failure to find a way forward on the file in a matter of months would then leave the gig worker labor reform at the mercy of reconfigured political priorities under a new European Commission and parliament \u2014 which may be even more right leaning than the current formation.<\/p>\n In a thread posted on X, Joaqu\u00edn P\u00e9rez Rey, labor minister in the Spanish government \u2014 which has held the rotating European Council presidency for the last six months; and had announced reaching a deal on the platform worker file on December 13<\/a> \u2014 blamed conservative and liberal governments for blocking the reform.<\/p>\n