With 505 votes in favour, 92 against and 44 abstentions, MEPs supported the European Commission's proposal that promotes the adequacy of national minimum wages, thus contributing to achieving decent working and living conditions for European workers.

The Council of the EU is expected to approve the legislation in September, after which it will take two years to fully transpose the directive into national legislation.

The directive establishes procedures for the adequacy of national minimum wages, promotes collective bargaining on wage setting and improves effective access to minimum wage protection for workers who are entitled to a minimum wage under national legislation, for example, through a national minimum wage or collective agreements.

Member States that have national minimum wages must establish a procedural framework for setting and updating these minimum wages according to a clear set of criteria.

The Council and the EP had already agreed that national minimum wage updates would take place at least every two years (or at most every four years in the case of countries using an automatic indexation mechanism).

The social partners should participate in the procedures for setting and updating national minimum wages.