European Social Dialogue: History, Characteristics, and Perspectives

ISSN 1019-3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2022, Vol. 92, Suppl. 7, pp. S660–S666. © The Author(s), 2022. This article is an open access publication. Russian Text © The Author(s), 2022, published in Sovremennaya Evropa, 2022, No. 7. European Studies European Social Dialogue: History, Characteristics, and Perspectives L. S. Bisson# Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia e-mail: Received June 6, 2022; revised August 14, 2022; accepted September 9, 2022 Abstract—The author examines the role of the European Social Dialogue (ESD) in decision-making on social policy and labor relations at supranational level in the EU. The author looks into the history and distinctive features of the ESD, its formats, procedures, and legal framework. Based on a review of the institutionalization of social dialogue at the national level in the EU-27, the author draws two conclusions. The first is that the development of social dialogue is uneven across the Union because of the particularities of the social models of the member states and their political and socioeconomic development. The second is that, despite national differences, the coverage of workers by collective agreements in the EU as a whole and the entrenchment of social dialogue at the supranational level make it an integral and distinctive feature of the European social model. An analysis of the evolution of the ESD suggests that there has been a continual move towards a more autonomous status for the social partners. However, because of the 2008–2010 crisis, the ESD’s role has significantly weakened. “A New Start for Social Dialogue” announced by the Juncker’s Commission and several further initiatives are largely declarative. The Court of Justice’s 2021 decision limiting the scope for implementing autonomous agreements at the communitarian level could have a negative impact on the further development of the ESD. Finally, the author positively assesses the possible role of the ESD in overcoming the social consequences of internal and external challenges and the negative effects of transformation of the labor markets. Keywords: European Union, social dialogue, social partners, trade unions, labor relations, European Pillar of Social Rights DOI: 10.1134/S1019331622130147 One of the key elements of “Social Europe” is the European Social Dialogue (ESD). From the very beginning of European integration, the social partners have played an important and, over time, increasingly prominent role in the development of EU social policy. Social dialogue is included in a wide range of instruments which help the institutions of the Union carry out the harmonization of the social sphere, promote the expansion of employment, and guarantee social protection of citizens. In addition to the fact that the European Commission (EC) consults with the social partners before making legislative proposals on a range of issues that regulate social and labor relations, representatives of workers and employers at the supranational level have contributed to the setting of social standards through autonomous agreements. Initiated by the J.-C. Juncker Commission in 2016, A New Start for Social Dialogue1 renewed the EU’s commitment to support social dialogue both at the Community level and in the Member States. During the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a significant impact on the labor market, the institution of social dialogue became an effective tool for maintaining employment in the early stages [ILO, 2020]. The EU Social Summit held in Porto in May 2021 secured an important role for the European social partners in the further development of Social Europe [Bisson, 2021]. In the second half of 2022, the Commission plans to present a plan to strengthen the institution of social dialogue at the community and national levels. Despite the fact that the ESD has led to significant results in the regulation of labor relations in the EU, there are still a number of obstacles to its effective implementation. The European social dialogue is a complex phenomenon that is widely studied among foreign researchers. The ESD is considered from the point of view of various theoretical approaches. In recent years, the use of social systems theories has been quite widespread: Luhmann’s theory about autopoietic sys- # Lyubov’ Sergeevna Bisson, Cand. Sci. (Polit.), is a Senior 1 A New Start for Social Dialogue, Statement of the Presidency of Researcher in the Department of European Integration Studies, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences. the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and the European Social Partners, June 27 (2016). S660 EUROPEAN SOCIAL DIALOGUE tems [Rogowski, 2000; Hartzén, 2017] and Dunlop’s theory of production relations [Omotayo and Allwell, 2014], according to which social dialogue is a social self-sustaining system with inherent elements such as actors, norms and rules governing the relations of industrial stakeholders, and communication. In addition, the multiplicity of participants and levels of social dialogue in the EU allows researchers to consider it within the framework of the theory of multi-level governance [Keune and Marginson, 2015]. Promising, in our opinion, will be studies of social dialogue within the framework of game theory which allows to establish the asymmetry of the interaction of various actors in the decision-making process [Sørensen et al., 2022]. Among Russian researchers the European social dialogue is most often considered as one of the many components of the EU social policy [Kargalova, 2006; Egorova and Kargalova, 2010; Social Europe in the 21st Century, 2011]. Several scientific articles have been devoted to the development of social dialogue either in individual European countries [Mozhaev, 2001; Polyanskaya, 2017, 2019], or in certain industries [Oleinikova and Murav’eva, 2006; Krysova, 2019]. The role of social dialogue in the regulation of labor relations in the EU is analyzed from the legal point of view in monographs on European labor law [Kashkina, 2009; Egorova, 2018]. However, there is a lack of political science research on the role of social partners in decision-making and social policy development at the supranational level in the European Union. In the context of the European Union, the term social dialogue is used to refer to negotiations between representatives of employers and workers—social partners—at various levels: supranational, national, regional, intersectoral, sectoral, and company level. The International Labor Organization (ILO) offers a broader definition of social dialogue, combining it with the notion of tripartism.2 The European Social Partners themselves limit the definition of social dialogue to only two-way interaction, even in the case of consultations carried out by the Commission in accordance with the procedure established in Articles 154– 155 TFEU. Interaction with EU institutions is not considered by the soci (...truncated)