The relationship between legislation and the collective agreement in labour law. Some European options

Is the intervention of the state in regulating collective labour relations a useful and beneficial tool, or rather a discouraging one? This is a long time concern of the doctrine, of the law-makers and of the practice of European industrial relations. And, on the background of different traditions and goals, the options are most diverse. Almost everywhere, the economic crisis and the digitalisation have altered the ratio of what the legislator has assumed and what is left to the social partners to regulate. Sometimes, the state has withdrawn to a certain extent from the process. Freed from constraints, the social partners have become more responsible than in the previous decade for the concrete way of negotiating and regulating collective relations. In other cases, the legislator felt the need to intervene more forcefully to offset the fragility of social dialogue. The paper aims to present some of the European options in the field and to place the experience of the Romanian law in context.