European Works Councils as an institution of European employee information and consultation: overview of typical features of national transposition provisions, outstanding legal questions and demands for amendments to EWC Directive 94/45/EC

The European Works Councils Directive owes the astonishing success of its transposition to the devising of a new mode of legislative implementation. The principle of double subsidiarity, with the progressive manner in which the provisions acquire a legally binding character, has led to a situation in which the aims of the Directive had been realised in part even before its formal implementation in the Member States. In this way it facilitates the emergence of a genuinely European practice of information and consultation. The article investigates to what extent the transposition regulation bear the stamp of national industrial relations traditions and hence diverge from one another — and from the prescriptions of the Directive — and this is demonstrated by taking one example of each of the five characteristic industrial relations models found in Europe. This exposition is followed by a discussion of certain problems that have arisen from the specific features of national transposition regulations in France, Ireland. Sweden, Spain and Germany in relation to the goal of harmonising the legislation on codetermination. Litigation is playing an increasingly significant role in the further development and harmonisation of European law on workplace codetermination, as evidenced by the initial outcomes of the Renault and Panasonic cases. Finally, the author formulates a number of demands which would contribute to strengthening the legal basis for effective codetermination and which should be borne in mind in the run-up to the revision of the Directive in autumn 1999.