On 9 October 2025, the European Parliament adopted the revised European Works Council Directive (the Revised Directive) which was approved by the Council on 27 October 2025 and is available here. In greenlighting the Revised Directive, the Council highlighted specific aspects which seek to:
- improve the effectiveness of worker representation in large multinational companies;
- clarify the scope of transnational matters;
- clarify the rules around the withholding of confidential information; and
- strengthen access to justice by ensuring works councils’ legal representation costs are covered.
The background and a snapshot of the key changes introduced by the Revised Directive are detailed in our previous article here.
Transposing the Revised Directive
The Revised Directive will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
EU member states will then have two years from its entry into force to transpose the Revised Directive into national law, with the new rules applying automatically one year later. While the Revised Directive provides for significant changes, the real impact remains to be seen pending the approach taken by Ireland when implementing the Directive.
Start acting now!
While the Revised Directive will not apply until late 2028 (exact date to be confirmed), employers in scope will need to take time to consider the impact on their organisation. Employers in scope should now:
- Review existing EWC agreements to identify the impact of any changes required to comply with the Revised Directive. As agreements are organisation specific, this will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- Consider the impact of the Revised Directive on any future cross‑border transactions or reorganisations. Employers should consider the timeline for such future projects, taking account of negotiations required with representatives, noting the stricter expectations for consultation and broader “transnational” scope under the Revised Directive.
- Consider how to comply with the Revised Directive if their agreement is no longer exempt from EWC laws, and how they intend to respond to a request to establish a new EWC agreement. For these organisations, the impact of the Revised Directive is likely to be significant. Under the Revised Directive, the negotiation of a new EWC agreement must be agreed within a two-year period (instead of three years), otherwise subsidiary requirements will apply.
EWC updates in Ireland
While employers and workers await the transposition of the Revised Directive, challenges under the existing Irish legislation continue.
On 2 December 2025, the Labour Court is due to hear the referral of a dispute between Ryanair and Fórsa regarding membership of Ryanair’s EWC under section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 1990.
It has been reported that Fórsa wants a fresh nomination procedure for membership of Ryanair’s EWC, while Ryanair is maintaining that the special negotiating body (SNB) should become members of the incoming EWC. It is understood that Ryanair’s SNB was set up in 2022 but a Fórsa representative was not established on it.
We understand the Ryanair dispute has been raised under the Industrial Relations Act instead of the 1996 Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Act (TICEA) as a result of the Labour Court decision in Verizon Ireland Limited v Charpentier. The Verizon case highlighted that section 17 of TICEA does not provide a dispute resolution provision for EWCs established under the subsidiary requirements that are collective in nature. The Court stated instead that section 17 of TICEA is framed to afford statutory protection to individual members of EWCs only as individuals. This means an EWC representative who raises a collective dispute on behalf of the EWC under the subsidiary requirements is unable to rely on the TICEA to resolve the dispute. This gap under TICEA has been considered on appeal on a point of law by the High Court. The judgment was published yesterday and we will provide our insights on this in a further briefing to follow.
If you would like further information on this topic, please contact Aisling Muldowney, Partner, Triona Sugrue, Senior Practice Development Consultant, Sheila Spokes, Associate, Fiona Stinson, Solicitor or any member of the ALG Employment Law team.
