The Problems and Paradoxes with the EU’s Regulation of Traineeships: A Way Forward

Abstract Traineeships are becoming too big an issue to ignore: over half of all young Europeans now complete one. This article provides the first comprehensive critique of EU-level regulation on traineeships, uncovering the problems and paradoxes within the existing regime and offering solutions. Part I examines the problems with the current patchwork of regulation, comprised of the Quality Framework on Traineeships, Court of Justice case-law and European Committee of Social Rights’ decision in YFJ v Belgium on unpaid internships. Challenges include the ‘hollow’ status of a trainee, the paradoxical requirements for employers to provide ‘solid and meaningful’ learning content without offering ‘real or genuine’ work and the incoherence of the ‘bogus’ traineeship approach, which is dependent upon a ‘non-bogus’ traineeship that does not exist. Part II then outlines three criteria for future regulation with a view to resolving the problems of the existing regime. Part III then evaluates the new regulatory proposals of the European Parliament and the Commission against these criteria. It is ultimately argued that the European Parliament’s approach is preferable to the Commission’s ‘disguised employee’ approach, since it fundamentally re-envisions trainees as workers with additional rights, reversing the current negative trainee status as those without working rights.