Article 154 embodies the social subsidiarity, for the European social partners are given the right to be consulted on any new social European initiative. Article 154 of the TFEU provides for the consultation of social partner organisations at European level on a range of issues concerning employment and social affairs set out in Article 153 of the Treaty. Article 154 provides for a compulsory two-stage consultation procedure: in the first stage the Commission consults the social partners on the possible direction of an initiative, whilst in the second stage, the focus is on the content of an initiative. This process enables the European social partners to directly influence the drafting of social proposals. More, during this phase, social partners may suspend the Commission initiative whilst deciding to enter into negotiations. If neither stage of the consultation results in a decision by the social partners to enter into bipartite negotiations, while the Commission still considers that Community action is desirable, the Commission will undertake the preparation of a legislative proposal.

Consultations in accordance with article 154 are limited to representative social partner organisations.

You can search the consultations by year using our document database.