July 6, 2007 9:23AM

An EU Minimum Wage Law?

By Daniel J. Mitchell

The European Union commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Joaquin Almunia, thinks there should be a minimum wage for all EU member nations. This is a destructive notion, considering many European nations suffer from substantional unemployment and under‐employment. To the extent that minimum wage policy is harmonized (as opposed to 27 different minimum wage policies in 27 EU nations), poorer countries will be hardest hit.

The EU Observer reports on the latest proposal from the statists in Brussels:

EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia has mooted the idea of minimum wages being introduced in each of the 27 member states across the European Union. “Every country in the EU should have a minimum wage,” Mr Almunia told the German weekly Die Zeit in an interview.

…[O]nly 20 EU member states currently have a set level of minimum wages.… Germany … is one of the few major world economies without a minimum wage.

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