Overall assessment

• Author: Panagiota Petroglou
• Pages: 146-150

146

12 Overall assessment

The following transposition problems were mentioned in this report:

1. New definitions of general concepts falling short of national and EU gender equality

acquis

Act 4604/2019 amended the existing definitions of direct discrimination (see 3.3.1 above),

indirect discrimination ( see 3.4.1 above), sexual harassment (s ee 3.7.3 above) , multiple

discrimination (see 3.5.1 above) and positive action (see 3.6.1 above), falling short of the

gender equality EU acq uis. By omitting an y reference to Directive 2006/54/EC, Greece is

in clear violation of its implementation requirements. Moreover, this undermines the

coherence of national law implementing the gender equality and anti-discrimination

Directives and c reates a la ck of clarity and leg al uncertainty, which is not allowed by EU

law in the implementation of the Directives.

2. Equal pay: Non-implementation of the pay transparency Recommendation 2014/124

Despite the provision of Article 4(2)(a) Act 389 6/2010, copying that of Directive 2006/54

on job clas sification, there is no case law on the provision of Arti cle 4(1) Act 3896/2010

or in general in relation to sex-based discrimination in job classificatio n systems or any

other instruments designated to assist in establishing gender-neutral j ob evaluation and

pay systems, and no monitoring of job classification. Consequently, there is no awareness,

hence no application of the n otion of equal value (see 4.2.3 and 4.2.4 above). To make

things wo rse, th e meas ures p roposed in Recommend ation 2014/124 have neither been

implemented by legislati on nor by collective agreements. This lack of transparency –

together with the fact that non-transparent job classifications that have traditionally been

considered fair, due to stereotypes to the detriment of formerly ΡfemaleΣ (and still female-

dominated) categories still not having been revised – renders the legal provisions on equal

pay, to a great extent, ineffective (see 4.2.11 above).

3. Conditions for maternity allowance in breach of Directive 92/85/EEC

In breach of Article 11(4) of Directive 92/85/EEC, social security legislation makes the

payment of the maternity allowance conditional upon the completion of 200 working days

during the 2 years preceding the commencement of maternity leave. Moreover, in breach

of Article 11(3) of Directive 92/85/EEC, the granting of maternity allowance is sub ject to

stricter cond itions than the granting of sickness allowance (th e grant ing of the latter is

subject to 75 working days in the year preceding the notification of the sickness, reduced

to 50 days as of 1 January 2020) (see 5.3.7 above).

4. Female salaried lawyers not entitled to ΡadequateΣ maternity allowance

Non-entitlement of female salaried lawyers to a maternity allowance by the competent

social security scheme ΡEFKAΣ due to the non-adoption of the Single Benefits Regulation of

the latter, in breach of Article 11(2)(b) Directive 92 /85, which explicitly provides for an

ΡadequateΣ maternity allowance (see 5.3.5 (i) above).

5. Non-renewal of a fixed-term employment contract of female workers due to their

state of pregnancy and/or maternity not covered by protection against dismissal

According to the Greek jurisprudence, female workers on a fixed-term contract enjoy

protection against dismi ssal connected t o their state of pregnancy and/or maternity onl y

until the expiry of their contract, whereas the non-renewal of their fixed-term contract is

not covered (see 4.3.4 above).