Promoting social dialogue is a common objective of the EU and its Member States, taking into account the diversity of national systems and respecting the autonomy of social partners.

"Social dialogue" means all types of negotiation, consultation or exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers and workers, on issues of common interest relating to economic, employment and social policy.

It exists as bipartite relations between labour and management, including collective bargaining, or as a tripartite process, with public authorities as an official party to the dialogue.

The Commission promotes social dialogue at the EU level:

• by supporting the work of the cross-industry Social Dialogue Committee and the 44 Sectoral Social Dialogue Committees
• by involving social partners in policy- and lawmaking
• by providing financial support to transnational projects carried out by social partners through the two social dialogue call for proposals (support for social dialogue, information and training measure for workers’ organisations).

Capacity-building of social partner organisations at national level can also be supported through the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+).

Consultations

The European Commission consults the European social partners on new legislative social policy initiatives.

Article 154 of the TFEU provides for a two-stage consultation of European social partners on a range of social policy issues set out in Article 153 of the Treaty, such as on working conditions, and occupational health and safety.

In the first stage the Commission consults the social partners on the direction of a possible Commission initiative, whilst in the second stage, the focus is on the envisaged content.

Social partners may decide to open negotiations and to deal with a specific issue through bipartite social dialogue at any stage during the two consultation phases. In such a case, the Commission initiative is suspended for a period of nine months.

If social partners reach an agreement they can decide to either implement the agreement autonomously (i.e. in accordance with the procedures and practices specific to management and labour in the Member States) or ask for the implementation of the agreement by a Council Directive based on a Commission proposal (Art. 155 TFEU).

These consultations are limited to the European social partner organisations, which are recognised as representative according to the below criteria

You can search the consultations by year using the link below:

• Consultations of the social partners
• List of consulted organisations

Representativeness

For an organisation to be recognised as a partner in European social dialogue, it must be cross-industry or relate to specific sectors or categories, organised at the EU level and capable of taking part in consultations and negotiating agreements.

As far as possible, organisations should be representative of all EU Member States, while their national members must be an integral and recognized part of Member States’ social partner structures and have the capacity to negotiate agreements.

Since 2006, representativeness studies have been carried by the EU agency in charge of research on living and working conditions, Eurofound.

Social Dialogue on social media

• Follow developments on Twitter: #EUSocDia