Over the last two years, legislative activity in Monaco has focused primarily on the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and corruption.
At the same time, however, the legislator has taken up three initiatives that could lead to changes in labour law provisions.
What are these projects? What stage have they reached? When will they be completed?
1. The most achieved: Bill 1054 on the protection of personal data.
The purpose of this text is to modernise the legal framework for data protection and bring it in line with European standards.
It will necessarily have implications for the protection of employees' personal data.
This bill was tabled in public session on 31 January 2022 and has been referred to the Review Committee, which is currently meeting with stakeholders. A report will be drawn up and any amendments will be presented at the public session.
It is therefore reasonable to hope that the text will soon be discussed and voted on at one of the next sessions of the National Council.
2. Still under consideration: Bill 259 amending certain provisions of Act 729 of 16 March 1963 on employment contracts, as amended, and introducing the conventional termination of employment contracts.
This draft law, an initiative of the National Councillors, has been called for in particular by those involved in Monegasque employment law, notably because it introduces the possibility of a conventional termination of the employment contract - without, however, calling into question the specific nature of redundancy under article 6 of the same law.
This text, tabled on 31 July 2023 and adopted by the National Councillors on 28 November 2023, was very recently transformed by the Government of Monaco, by decision of 27 May 2024.
This is good news, given that the legislative process on this text will continue, possibly with future amendments from the Government, which has until 1er June 2025 to submit the resulting bill to the National Council.
Employers and employees will therefore probably have to wait a little longer before benefiting from the modernisation work initiated by Law no. 729 on employment contracts.
3. At the very beginning: Bill 262 on the time savings account
On 20 June 2024, the National Councillors tabled in public session a draft law aimed at extending to a larger number of employees the time savings account scheme introduced by law no. 1.505 of 24 June 2021 on the concerted organisation of working time.
This text is still in its infancy: no rapporteur has yet been appointed and it has not yet been amended or voted on by the national councillors.
It is therefore still open to numerous changes, in addition to those that will be made by the Government, if it is decided to transform the text into a bill, and therefore to continue the legislative process concerning the extension of the scheme.
It is therefore premature to comment on this first draft, which is certainly a long way from the version that will eventually be voted on, but this is naturally a project to be followed up, which will keep the National Council and, if it takes it up, the Government busy over the coming months and years.
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