Regulation of Fixed-Term Employment Contracts in the EU, France, Finland and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This article considers the regulation of fixed-term contracts in the Framework Agreement on Fixed-Term Work, in the light of its key objectives. It considers whether the Framework Agreement has managed to retain open-ended contracts as the main form of employment, to prevent the abuse of successive fixed-term contracts, and to sanction such abuse. The article provides a comparative analysis of the regulations implementing the Framework Agreement and their objectives, and an assessment of whether these regulations meet the said objectives, in three European Union (EU) Member States: Finland, France and the United Kingdom (UK). The relevant CJEU case law indicates that the key principles governing the use of fixed-term contracts, such as the key role of open-ended contracts and the principle of objective reasons, are still too imprecise. This, coupled with the fact that the conditions for using successive fixed-term contracts are not precisely determined in Clause 5 and that the Clause does not have vertical direct effect, leads to the conclusion that the Framework Agreement has partly failed in its objective of preventing abuse arising from successive fixed-term contracts and retaining open-ended contracts as the main form of employment, as recent CJEU case law indicates. The effects of the Framework Agreement in respect of Clause 5 have remained relatively modest in the three countries reviewed. Legislation restricting the use of successive fixed-term contracts was already in place in France and Finland, and thus no implementation measures were needed.The UK was one of the few countries that had to introduce completely new measures to implement the Directive. Even in this case, the Agreement has not resulted in any significant improvement in the protection of fixed-term employees.