EU Economic Governance and the Right to Collective Bargaining: Part 2. From imposed restrictions of the right by EU Member States towards a social economic governance

Abstract

This article is the second part of a research to the structure and legal nature of EU economic governance and its damaging impact on the right to collective bargaining during the crisis. The first part was published in the former edition of the ELLJ 2018, no. 4. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the actual tension between, on one side, EU economic governance and social policy measures of the Member States and, on the other side, the respect for the right to collective bargaining. The article assesses the restrictions to the right in several Member States during the last decade. Further it comments on the positive changes made by the Commission Juncker and it evaluates the most recent Country-specific Recommendations of 2018.