Europäischer Mindestlohn

With the adoption of the Directive 2041/2022 on adequate minimum wages in the European Union, the EU legislator challenged the limits of social policy competences with unprecedented clarity. Art. 153 (5) TFEU expressly excludes the EU legislator's competence for ‘pay’. The Minimum Wage Directive, which has also been challenged before the CJEU (C-19/23), is considered by many scholars to be a violation of EU-competences. In the context of this conflict of competences, the work examines the dogmatics of the exemption for ‘pay’ in Art. 153 (5) TFEU and elaborates, inter alia, its genesis and purposes. The work shows under which conditions an EU minimum wage legislation is consistent with the Treaty.