The Justice Dilemma between Equal Pay Regulation and Collective Wage setting in the EU

Two recent EU directives — the Pay Transparency Directive (EU) 2023/970 and the Minimum Wage Directive (EU) 2022/2041 (ECJ ruling pending) — signal a renewed institutional commitment to achieving gender pay equality in the European market. However, they also highlight a normative tension at the heart of achieving wage equality. While both aim to address wage disparities, they rely on different principles of justice. The Pay Transparency Directive is specifically designed to address gender pay inequality. It aims to promote wage equality by giving individuals the right to access information. In contrast, the Minimum Wage Directive seeks to reinforce collective and redistributive mechanisms. This issue is reflected in national-level debates on political economy and industrial relations concerning the balance between state intervention in the form of top-down wage policies, and collective autonomy in the form of bottom-up industrial democracy. This paper examines the interplay between these distinct yet overlapping initiatives, asking: How do EU regulatory approaches construct transparency as an effective and sufficient mechanism for addressing gender pay inequality, and what are the broader implications of this for gender equality? The paper contextualises this issue within the frameworks of critical political economy and feminist political theory. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s concept of justice as parity of participation and Axel Honneth’s recognition theory, it interprets pay transparency as part of a broader transformation of EU governance, shifting the focus from redistribution and values to procedures and visibility. Within the field of EU studies, transparency has evolved from an institutional principle of openness to a governance that promotes accountability and marketisation. When applied to gender equality, this logic reframes the gender pay gap as a problem of information asymmetry rather than social valuation. This translates feminist demands for the revaluation of care and social reproduction into technocratic disclosure mechanisms.