Josephine Ortleb, Vice-President of the Bundestag and an SPD representative, sharply criticized Federal Minister for Families Karin Prien of the CDU over the failure to implement new European Union regulations concerning increased wage transparency.
“The major problem is that no draft law is available yet, even though we demanded it months ago,” Ortleb told the Tagesspiegel. She stressed the need for swift action, concluding, “The ball is in the court of the responsible minister, Karin Prien.”
Germany missed the compliance deadline for introducing these new EU rules on Monday. Ortleb described the failure to meet the deadline as “bitter.” While Minister Prien has announced she plans to submit the draft to the cabinet “very soon,” the SPD politician expressed confidence that Prien will successfully convince any skeptical colleagues within her own party.
Despite strong criticism from employers and portions of the CDU, Ortleb remains convinced that the directive will ultimately be put into practice in Germany. “It will certainly happen,” she stated. She finds the arguments against implementation hard to understand, particularly the concern surrounding alleged new bureaucracy.
Ortleb noted that this bureaucratic argument is frequently leveraged when discussing women’s rights, citing the debate over setting rules for more women in leadership positions as a comparable example. She added that the economy has not been negatively impacted by such initiatives. She firmly believes that pay transparency can be implemented without creating burdensome paperwork.
In her view, the EU directive encompasses the interests of both small and large businesses. Ortleb insisted that the rules should be implemented “one-to-one,” warning against undermining women’s rights under the guise of bureaucratic concerns. She concluded that only by addressing wage differences can the goal of ensuring millions of women receive what they are owed finally be achieved.
