Collective rights, competition, and self-employed workers in the EU: recent developments and ongoing problems

The article examines the intricate relationship between competition law and collective rights in EU regulations, critically assessing whether and to what extent self-employed workers can exercise collective rights based on the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case law. Additionally, it considers the European Commission’s recent initiative to acknowledge and expand the collective dimension of self-employed workers. To address the specific collective rights of genuine self-employed workers, the Commission, acting in its capacity as the EU’s competition authority, has taken steps in the Guidelines on the Application of Union Competition Law to Collective Agreements to steer towards a renewed interpretation of the scope of application of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), with the aim of excluding collective bargaining agreements concluded by or on behalf of certain categories of solo-self-employed workers from its scope. In light of the above, the article provides a critical analysis of the Guidelines and evaluates the degree to which the current EU legal framework aligns with fundamental collective rights while attempting to offer renewed hermeneutical solutions to alter the consolidated line of systematic construction of the relationship between collective rights and competition law.