Directive (EU) 2024/2831 must be transposed into Bulgarian law by 2 December 2026. What changes for platforms, for the businesses that work with them and for the people who work through an app.
The courier delivering food, the driver on a ride-hailing app and the freelancer picking up tasks through an online platform in Bulgaria most often work as self-employed persons or under a civil-law contract. In practice, however, the app allocates their orders, sets the price, tracks their route, rates them and can “deactivate” them. This is a form of control that closely resembles an employer’s authority.
Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on improving working conditions in platform work is the EU’s answer to this mismatch. The deadline for its transposition expires on 2 December 2026. At the time of writing, a draft law transposing the Directive has not yet been published for public consultation.
The core: a rebuttable presumption of an employment relationship
The most important innovation is the legal presumption (Article 5 of the Directive). The contractual relationship between a digital labour platform and the person performing work through it is presumed to be an employment relationship where facts indicating control and direction are found. Those facts are assessed in accordance with national law, collective agreements and the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU.
The practical consequences are threefold:
It is important to stress that the presumption does not automatically turn everyone into an employee. It merely shifts the burden of proof onto the party that holds all the data, including the algorithms through which it manages the work.
From the perspective of Bulgarian law, the logic is not new. Under Article 1(2) of the Labour Code, relationships involving the provision of labour are to be regulated only as employment relationships. The courts have long looked beyond the label of the contract and examined its actual features: personal performance, working time and place of work, subordination and disciplinary authority. In addition, the Labour Inspectorate may declare the existence of an employment relationship under the procedure of Article 405a of the Labour Code.
The problem is that these features are hard to “see” under algorithmic management. Working time “runs” in the app, and the workplace is the saddle of a bicycle. The Directive gives courts and enforcement authorities a tool adapted to this reality.
If the Labour Code is not amended by 2 December 2026, the Directive will not automatically “kick in” in the relationship between the platform and the person working through it. According to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, directives have no horizontal direct effect (only vertical effect – against the State) and cannot of themselves impose obligations on private parties. Platforms are private companies, so a person cannot bring a claim against a platform directly on the basis of the Directive.
Once the deadline has passed, Bulgarian courts are obliged to interpret national law, as far as possible, in the light of the Directive. Thus, in a claim for a declaration that an employment relationship exists, and also in an inspection by the Labour Inspectorate under Article 405a of the Labour Code, the Directive’s criteria of “control and direction” may be used in interpreting Article 1(2) of the Labour Code.
The Directive builds on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with specific rules for platforms. They apply to everyone who works through a platform, whether they are employees or self-employed, and already from the recruitment stage.
Platforms may not use automated systems to process data on:
The platform must carry out a data protection impact assessment and provide it to the workers’ representatives. It must also inform workers in writing, no later than the first working day, which automated monitoring and decision-making systems it uses and what data they collect. Workers also gain a right to portability of the data generated by their work, including ratings and reviews. This way, the reputation they have built up can be transferred to another platform.
What platforms and intermediaries should do now
Conclusion
Directive 2024/2831 does not prohibit platform work, but in some cases it may place the algorithm under the same legal scrutiny as any direct manager and employer. For platforms that already operate this way, the change will be mainly a matter of documentation. For the rest, from 2 December 2026 there is a risk of claims, inspections and sanctions.
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This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice on any specific case. It reflects the state of the law as at the date of publication.
