Case C-599/26, Geniko Nosokomeio Kilkis – the bonus the public sector lost
The Adequate Minimum Wages Directive survived a challenge to its validity last year, minus part of one article. This is one of the first references to ask what the rest of it requires.
Facts
D.Ch, K.A, Z.D and other employees are suing the Geniko Nosokomeio Kilkis, a public general hospital, before the Monomeles Protodikeio Kilkis. Greek law requires the payment to all workers in an employment relationship of Christmas, Easter and annual leave bonuses equivalent in total to two months’ salary, but excludes workers employed by legal persons governed by public law and, more generally, in the public sector — an exclusion the referring court describes as made “without any specific justification”, having regard in particular to the improvement in Greece’s financial position. As a result, according to the court, most of the applicants receive annual remuneration below the annual amount of the statutory minimum wage. The court asks whether Articles 17, 20 and 31 of the Charter and Articles 3(1) and (2) and 6(1) of Directive (EU) 2022/2041 preclude that exclusion.
Questions Referred
Must Articles 17, 20 and 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 3(1) and (2) and Article 6(1) of Directive 2022/2041 be interpreted as precluding the provisions of Greek law referred to in the grounds which, whilst providing for the compulsory payment to all workers in an employment relationship of Christmas, Easter and annual leave bonuses equivalent to two months’ salary, exclude such payments for workers employed by legal persons governed by public law and, more generally, in the public sector, without any specific justification, having regard in particular to the improvement of the financial situation of Greece and the fact that, as a result, most of the applicants receive annual remuneration below the annual amount corresponding to the statutory minimum wage?
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/4482 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Directive (EU) 2022/2041
Comment
The Directive’s validity was tested before its content was. In Case C‑19/23, Denmark v Parliament and Council (ECLI:EU:C:2025:865) the Court annulled parts of Article 5 — the provisions on the criteria for setting statutory minimum wages — but left the remainder standing, including the two articles the Kilkis court relies on. Article 3(1) defines “minimum wage” as the minimum remuneration that an employer, “including in the public sector”, is required to pay; Article 6(1) requires that where Member States allow “different rates of statutory minimum wage for specific groups of workers or for deductions that reduce the remuneration paid to a level below that of the relevant statutory minimum wage”, those variations and deductions “respect the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality, the latter including the pursuit of a legitimate aim”.
The applicants’ argument links the two. The Directive expressly covers public-sector employers. The Greek scheme does not pay public-sector workers less than the monthly minimum wage, but by removing two months’ pay from the annual total it leaves them, over a year, below what the statutory minimum amounts to — and does so for one group of workers defined by the identity of their employer. If that is a “variation” for a specific group within Article 6(1), it must be non-discriminatory and pursue a legitimate aim proportionately, and the referring court’s observation that the original fiscal justification has lapsed with Greece’s recovery goes directly to that test.
The obstacle is the Directive’s own architecture. It sets a framework for the adequacy of minimum wages and the procedure for setting them; it does not harmonise pay, and Article 153(5) TFEU provides that the social policy article “shall not apply to pay” — the limit at the heart of last year’s challenge to the Directive. Whether the Court reads Article 6(1) as reaching the structure of annual remuneration, including statutory bonuses, or only the rate of the minimum wage itself, is the question that decides how much practical force the surviving Directive has. The Charter articles cited — property, equality before the law, fair working conditions — will only bite if the Directive brings the Greek rule within the scope of Union law first.