Report puts spotlight on Commission's approach to social dialogue

A working paper from the European Trade Union Institute, written by former European Commission official Jean-Paul Tricart, puts the spotlight on the way that the current Commission has followed its predecessor in moving away from a 20-year approach in support of social dialogue. While launching a process aimed ostensibly at the strengthening the social dialogue, the report argues that the current Commission has chosen "at will those outcomes of social dialogue that it would promote and those that it would not, and even those that it would go all out to discourage, lampoon or oppose." This leaves open the debate "as regards the legitimacy of the selective, restrictive approach."