When national social partners interact in a multi-level environment: the case of the European social dialogue

Through the European social dialogue, the national trade unions and employer organisations are closely involved in the European decision-making process. Yet, taking part in the European social dialogue is not an obvious action for domestic actors. Unions and employers’ representatives act within industrial relations systems, which are determined by stakes, which are strictly national and their action is still mainly directed towards the national political arenas. So, how can one explain the motivations of national actors to invest at European level where negotiations can turn out to be much more complex? This paper looks at the involvement of the national social partners in the European social dialogue and examines more particularly the strategies they develop when they act in a multi-level environment. From a series of case studies and a comparative analysis conducted on two sectoral committees- hospitals and agriculture- and national organisations coming from 13 countries, the analysis shows that according to the different national situations, the unions and employers ‘organisations participate in the European social dialogue with the objective of acquiring new opportunities to influence and to maintain existing rights. It also appears the actors that actually weight on the European decisions, have already considerable institutional and organisational capacities at the national level. The European social dialogue would therefore seem to reproduce the structures of existing capacity at national level. Only those actors who, at domestic level, have the capacity to intervene in the decision-making and to develop practices and norms with autonomy, are able to weight on the European decision-making process. Marginal and weak domestic actors remain therefore marginal and weak in the European social dialogue