On 5 March, the European Commission and European social partners signed a “Pact for European Social Dialogue”. This is the third attempt to revive European social dialogue, and it may prove to be the last one, as long as the actors involved at cross-industry level carry on failing to deliver any concrete results. The first attempt was in 2016, when the Commission, the Dutch Presidency of the EU and European social partners adopted a quadripartite statement entitled “A new start for social dialogue” (see IR Notes 58). Subsequently, on 3 February 2021, European commissioner Nicolas Schmit published the report on strengthening EU social dialogue (see IR Notes 157), which agreed to most of the requests formulated by European social partners in a Joint statement published in December 2020. On 25 January 2023, the Commission renewed efforts to make progress by adopting, on the same day, a communication on strengthening social dialogue in the European Union and a recommendation to Member States on this subject (see IR Notes 201). Clearly this was not enough, and the Commission, together with European social partners, then adopted a Tripartite Declaration for a Thriving European Social Dialogue on 31 January 2024, marking the 40th anniversary of the Val Duchesse summit (see Val Duchesse), organised by the former Commission President Jacques Delors, who launched a process that led to the creation of European social dialogue (see IR Notes 223).
The atmosphere surrounding the recent signing of the new Pact for European Social Dialogue announced in this declaration might be described as one of indifference… for very good reasons. Firstly, its content is merely a repetition of previous texts (see “Cross-industry social dialogue” section below). And secondly, its appearance comes at a time when European social dialogue has reached a standstill:
1/ The number of texts derived from European social dialogue has fallen from six during the period 1996-2006 (including two agreements converted into directives, on part-time work and fixed-term contracts), to two agreements since 2016: one on active ageing, which was fairly minimalist, and the other on digitalisation, which avoided imposing any standards at all on the world of work.
2/ In a forthcoming article (*), Christophe Degryse, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (see interview opposite), makes the point that cross-industry European social partners have failed to adhere to their multiannual work programme. The 2019-2021 programme did not deliver a single proposal on the topic of psychosocial risks at work. Worse still, in the 2022-2024 programme, they not only failed to negotiate a European framework agreement on telework and the right to disconnect, which was due to be subsequently implemented via a European directive, but also to complete three of the five other planned initiatives, including the preparation of a framework of action on environmental transition.
3/ European social partners possess a “super-power” – one that exists in no other democratic entity in the world: they can decide to negotiate agreements at the time when the Commission consults them on the merits of a European initiative, and they can then call on the Council and Parliament to adopt their agreement in the form of a European directive, published almost verbatim. They have been consulted several times since the start of the von der Leyen Commission’s first term – on proposals for a directive on minimum wages (2020), protecting platform workers (2021), revision of the European Works Councils directive (2023), regulating traineeships (2023) and on telework and the right to disconnect (2024). However, European social partners have failed to take the initiative and launch joint negotiations on any of these important subjects, with the exception of telework and the right to disconnect, before the employers’ delegation walked away from the negotiations just when the home straight was in sight, saying that some of their members were not in agreement with them.
It is no longer good enough to keep repeating the incantation to strengthen European social dialogue, if the actors engaged in it are not themselves convinced that – as the Draghi report points out – more effective social dialogue will be central in building the consensus needed to build sustainable competitiveness.
©Dati Bendo, European Union, 2025
(*) Piasna A. and Theodoropoulou S. (eds.) (2025) Benchmarking Working Europe 2025, Chapter 6, ETUI-ETUC.
