8th European Regional Meeting – Facts on new wage challenges: trends and policy issues: “Wages have been one of the most widely discussed issues throughout the region in recent years and will undoubtedly continue to be so in the context of the present financial crisis. The region from mid-90s has experienced some improvements in terms of real wage growth, particularly in countries of Central and Eastern Europe which are now in the EU. However, income and wage differences have widened over the same period. There has also been a general fall in the wage share of GDP. This means that workers do not obtain an appropriate share of economic growth and that wages are somehow disconnected from productivity, all of which can lead to economic and
social imbalances.

There is also a relatively high incidence of low pay in the EU-27,
a phenomenon that has contributed to put the minimum wage at the top of policy-makers’ priorities. The new context after EU enlargements – notably with increased capital and labour movements – has also led to debates about the possibility of introducing an EU-wide minimum wage, or at least common EU principles on minimum wage fixing.”