The Internationalization of Industrial Relations in Europe: Prospects and Problems. CES Working Paper, vol. 1, no. 1, 1998

European industrial relations are rapidly internationalizing; internationalization, however, is not necessarily de-nationalization.1 Even as European integration accelerates, national politics and industrial relations will, for better or worse, remain the principal arenas for the social regulation of work and employment in Europe. This is because over the course of four decades, European integration has come to be to firmly defined as a process of economic liberalization by international means, that is, the opening-up of national economies through internationally negotiated expansion of markets beyond national borders. Associated with this was the evolution of a now well established pattern of selective supranational centralization and institution-building, which dedicates supranational institutions primarily to purposes of market-making while leaving social regulation essentially a national responsibility. As a result, social regulation becomes itself exposed to competitive market pressures, which further advances liberalization