Driving the EU working conditions directive: social partner reactivity and the limits to commission entrepreneurship
In a new article in Comparative European Politics, Mikkel Mailand analyzes how the EU directive on working conditions came about and what role the social partners played. The analysis shows that the EU Commission is often the dominant actor when it comes to labor market political regulation, and that the European parties on the labor market mostly have reactive roles, even in their core areas.
The EU’s social dimension has been strengthened since the mid-2010s. Recent research has shown how Commission entrepreneurship in meta-governance such as the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Semester turned existing regulation in a more ‘social’ direction or led to new regulation strengthening Social Europe. This article asks whether the Commission also stands out as the most important actor in initiatives focused exclusively on working conditions and if the European social partners also in these are secondary reactive actors. Focusing on a recent case where the social partners had a treaty-based right to bargain—the Working Conditions Directive—the article confirms the Commission’s dominance and the reactivity of the social partners. The choice not to bargain reduces the social partners to lobbyists attempting to influence other key actors. However, the case also shows the limits to Commission entrepreneurship in that EU member states and the European Parliament were able to influence the outcome in important ways.
Read the full article 'Driving the EU working conditions directive: social partner reactivity and the limits to commission entrepreneurship' by Mikkel Mailand, published in Comparative European Politics, May 2024.