In May 2023, for the first time, we organised a week-long training course in Brussels for the European Works Council of Suez, including a visit to the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee.
This exercise was repeated in 2024 and 2025 for Engie’s European Works Council, with meetings between representatives of these two institutions and representatives of European trade union federations IndustriAll Europe and EPSU. In 2026, we already have a project for Engie’s European Works Council, focusing on EU energy policy.
Why This Training Matters
Enabling European employee representatives to feel European and discover an ecosystem in Brussels that can support and listen to their EWC.
A EWC represents several thousand or tens of thousands of employees in the European Union and is fully entitled to interact with European decision-makers, whether in Parliament, the Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee or with European social partners. Training in Brussels helps to anchor the EWC in this reality.
Who It’s For
This training is ideal for:
What the Training Covers
Each training is customized to the EWC needs, but learning expeditions include:
Visit of European
- National models of representation: co-determination, union dominance, etc.
- Meetings with MEPs, representatives of the European Commission, members of the European Economic and Social Committee, etc.
- Visit to the Parliament chamber and tour of the European quarter to see iconic buildings (Council of the EU, Commission headquarters, etc.)
Meeting with key players in social Europe
- Round tables with European social partners
- Discussions with MEPs or their assistants
- Integration into training for experts working in Brussels
Learning Objectives
By the end of the training, participants will:
Understand
How works the EU institution and the way legislation is adopted
Feel
What means to represent the EU workforce of their company
Be familiar
With EU actors to be able to interact with them
Gain
Time in case of restructuring to find the relevant supports
Trainers profiles
Frédéric Turlan
Director, Editor of IR Notes
Frédéric is an expert in industrial relations. He has an extensive experience of writing and editing industrial relations and labour law material for a practitioner and policymaker audience.

He has written numerous reports, comparative studies and analyses for Eurofound, as national correspondent for France, and for other research centres across Europe on industrial relations and working conditions issues. He also organised numerous in-house training for European Works’ Councils on EU labour law, industrial relations and other relevant issues for EWCs and transnational social dialogue.
Christophe Teissier
Project manager, Ultra Laborans
Christophe trained as a lawyer and worked for the French Ministry of Research. In 2007, he joined Astrées (which became Ultra Laborans in 2023) to work on developments in social dialogue. Since then, he has been working on reinventing deliberative processes in companies, with a view to better tackling today’s major societal challenges. He heads up Ultra Laborans’ social dialogue expertise and European projects. In this capacity, he has developed recognised expertise at European level on issues relating to social dialogue and its players. He has been involved on numerous occasions in training members of European Works Councils in various sectors, notably alongside IR SHARE. Recently, he trained the EWCs of Veolia (2023), Suez (2023), BNP Paribas (2022), Generali (2021) and SCOR (2021).
Ambre Grenier-Boley
Junior researcher, IR Share
Ambre Grenier-Boley holds a Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, with a focus on public policy and sustainability. She previously earned a BSc in Liberal Arts & Science from Erasmus University College in Rotterdam, concentrating on politics, philosophy, and economics. As a member of IR Share, Ambre is passionate about advancing an informed and constructive dialogue on European industrial relations and policy issues through her research.
