Variations on a theme ? The implementation of the European Works Councils Recast Directive

Romuald Jagodzinski (1) , Jan Cremers (2) , Pacale Lorber , Sylvaine Laulom (3) , Filip Dorssemont (4)

1 European Trade Union Institute
2 Tilburg University [Netherlands]
3 CERCRID - Centre de Recherches Critiques sur le Droit
4 UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain

The European Works Councils Directive, when adopted in 1994, represented a highly significant breakthrough. In the two decades since elapsed, EWCs have become one of the pillars of transnational worker representation in Europe. Yet the rigours of practice revealed numerous shortcomings in the legislation and many practitioners and observers hoped that most – if not all – of these could be rectified by the EWC Recast Directive adopted in 2009. The year 2016 will see the formal conclusion of the evaluation procedure designed to ascertain whether the important improvements delivered by the EWC Recast Directive have had any impact on the EWCs’ conditions of operation and whether further amendment of this Directive should be considered. The authors of this book aim to contribute to this important debate. They argue that, before taking decisions concerning possible changes to the EWC Recast Directive, it is crucial to evaluate how this piece of legislation was transposed into national law in the first place. This knowledge is essential for any assessment of whether legal improvements on the European level have been properly incorporated into national legislation and thus made directly available and applicable to all EWCs regardless of the national law on which they are based. Without such knowledge it will be impossible to assess the true effectiveness of the Recast Directive, the essential question being whether potentially divergent national transpositions nonetheless ensure equal treatment and, ultimately, convergence around a genuine European model. In search of answers to this question, the authors of the book look into the national transposition legislation of the 31 countries of the European Economic Area. The findings are deeply relevant both for EU policy-making and for practitioners required to deal with differing national legislative regimes.

Domaines: Droit

Romuald Jagodzinski, Jan Cremers, Pacale Lorber, Sylvaine Laulom, Filip Dorssemont. Variations on a theme ? The implementation of the European Works Councils Recast Directive. Romuald Jagodzinski. ETUI, pp.199, 2015, 978-2-87452-386-1. ⟨halshs-02625956⟩