Cyprus is at the bottom of the EU ranking when it comes to pay transparency — a crucial reform expected to strengthen the principle of equal pay for equal work and help close the persistent gender pay gap.

Although a draft legal framework has already been prepared and should have been submitted to social partners for consultation, the process appears to have stalled, despite the relevant EU directive and its established timeline. EU member states are required to implement the directive by 7 June 2026.

According to Eurostat, women in the EU earn on average 12% less per hour than men.

“This is only part of the problem,” says Panikos Argyridis, General Secretary of the SEK trade union, speaking to Brief.

He explains that for millions of workers, knowing the salary range before applying for a job is essential. “In many cases,” Argyridis notes, “during the negotiation process between a job applicant and an employer, the candidate may not be aware of the salary range of the position — and may avoid asking, fearing it could harm their hiring prospects.”

According to Europe’s trade union movement, implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive could help dismantle the culture of secrecy surrounding wages, creating fairer conditions for younger and newly hired employees.

Data from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) show that progress across the EU has been slow — raising concerns that several countries may fail to meet next year’s deadline.

As of September 2025, the Addleshaw Goddard implementation tracker shows that 10 of the 27 EU member states had not yet taken any steps to implement the directive. These include Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Slovenia.

In 8 countries, including Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain, draft legislation is currently being prepared. This suggests that technical committees or working groups have been formed, proposals are in place, and consultations are underway.

Draft laws have already been published in Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Sweden, while Belgium, Malta, and Poland are in the process of partial implementation. Germany is also preparing to update its legislation in line with the directive.

According to Argyridis, EU countries appear to be taking different approaches to applying the directive. “Some countries are adapting and amending existing laws, while others are creating entirely new legislation closely aligned with the directive — particularly where no comparable legal framework exists,” he explained.

Under the directive, employees and their representatives will have the right to request clear and detailed information on individual pay levels, as well as average pay levels by gender for employees performing the same or equivalent work.

They will also be entitled to information on the criteria used to determine pay and salary progression, which must be objective and gender-neutral.

Companies with more than 250 employees will be required to submit annual reports on gender pay gaps to the national authority.
Companies with 100 to 250 employees must report every three years.

If an unjustified pay gap exceeding 5% is identified, companies must conduct a joint pay assessment in collaboration with employee representatives. The directive also prohibits pay secrecy, meaning workers are free to discuss or inquire about salaries within or across job categories.

Across Europe, employer associations have mounted significant pressure to water down the directive, seeking to exempt large numbers of businesses from binding obligations.

The ETUC has repeatedly condemned such lobbying efforts, demanding assurances from the EU that women will not bear the cost of employer-driven backtracking.

If businesses employing 100 to 250 workers were to be exempted, as proposed by BusinessEurope, more than 10 million female workers across the EU would be excluded from the directive’s benefits. According to ETUC, this would result in annual losses of at least €4.8 billion in wages for women.

The ETUC has announced that it is ready to conditionally endorse the EU Roadmap for Women’s Rights, provided its principles are effectively implemented.

Despina Isaia, Head of the Women Workers Department at SEK, stressed that full and unconditional application of the pay transparency directive is one of the main conditions trade unions have set. She noted that the legislation will serve as a vital tool for closing the gender pay gap within companies across Europe.