EU pay transparency rights start, but Belgium still needs national rules

Workers across the European Union are gaining stronger rights to know how pay is set, how comparable colleagues are paid and whether a gender pay gap is hidden inside their employer. In Belgium, the change matters directly for employees, job applicants, unions and companies, but the right will not work in full until Belgian law has completed the EU directive’s national transposition. The EU Pay Transparency Directive required all 27 member states, including Belgium, to put implementing rules in place by 7 June 2026. Its core promise is simple: workers should not have to guess whether they are being paid fairly. Employers must give job applicants information on starting pay or a salary range before employment begins, may not ask applicants what they earned in previous jobs, and must let employees request average pay levels for comparable work, broken down by sex. For a Belgium-based reader, the practical question is not only “howveel collega's verdienen vanaf vandaag?” The sharper question is when Belgian workers can use the new right against an employer in Brussels, Flanders or Wallonia. VRT NWS reported that the EU right formally takes effect while Belgium still requires patience because domestic legislation is needed to make the system operational. The directive also changes the balance of power in equal-pay disputes. Where facts suggest pay discrimination, employers can be required to show that pay differences are based on objective, gender-neutral criteria. Companies with at least 100 workers will face gender pay-gap reporting duties, phased in by size. Employers with 250 or more workers, and those with 150 to 249 workers, face first reporting deadlines in 2027; those with 100 to 149 workers follow in 2031. If reporting shows a pay gap of at least 5% in a category of workers, and the employer cannot justify it or fix it within six months, the company must carry out a joint pay assessment with worker representatives. That is especially relevant in Belgium, where trade unions such as ACV-CSC, ABVV-FGTB and ACLVB-CGSLB already play a central role in collective bargaining and workplace representation. Belgium is not starting from zero. Wage-setting is heavily shaped by sectoral collective agreements, indexation and job classification systems. That can reduce arbitrary pay bargaining compared with more individualised labour markets. But it can also make unequal job valuation harder to see, particularly where female-dominated functions are clustered in lower-paid classifications or where part-time work affects lifetime earnings. Belgian employers, represented by organisations such as FEB-VBO and regional business groups including Voka, UWE and Beci, will watch the implementing law closely. The directive does not simply require disclosure. It requires pay systems that can be explained, documented and defended. For HR departments, that means clearer salary bands, objective promotion criteria and data systems able to compare equivalent work across teams. At EU level, the political framing is equality and enforceability. The directive’s official title says it is designed to strengthen the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value through transparency and enforcement mechanisms. The Commission has argued that pay secrecy makes discrimination difficult to prove. The European Parliament backed binding measures after years of slow progress on the gender pay gap. The opposing view is not a defence of unequal pay, but a warning about complexity. Employer-side concerns centre on administrative load, legal uncertainty around “work of equal value”, and the risk that badly designed disclosure rules produce conflict without improving pay structures. SMEs will look for practical templates and clear thresholds. Belgium’s institutional angle is unusually strong because the file sits at the meeting point of EU law, Belgian labour law and Brussels-based EU politics. Belgian European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib now holds the equality portfolio in the von der Leyen Commission, while federal Labour and Economy Minister David Clarinval is the Belgian minister whose department is central to national implementation. What happens next is legal and political. Belgium must finalise enforceable rules, designate the bodies that receive or supervise pay-gap data, define sanctions, and explain how workers can request information without exposing colleagues’ personal salaries. Until then, the EU standard is clear, but the Belgian route to using it remains unfinished.