For now, let's see what the Court of Justice rules in two weeks... 👀

#EUSocialPolicy #MinimumWageDirective #CollectiveBargaining #IndustrialRelations #SocialEurope #LabourLaw #EuropeanUnion

In short, the directive has served as a catalyst for debate – helping unions, policy-makers and experts revisit long-standing questions of low pay, collective bargaining and social justice.

⚖️ The lesson?
Even 'soft' EU law can have hard political effects – when actors choose to use it.

🔹 In Ireland, it strengthened the legitimacy of plans for a 'living wage' and revived dialogue on collective bargaining reform.
🔹 In Italy, where no statutory minimum wage exists, it inspired judicial and political initiatives on fair pay and representative bargaining – also at the local level.

🔹 In the Netherlands, the government pursued a minimalist transposition, yet the Directive recalibrated how adequacy is evaluated and reinforced attention for youth wages and bargaining coverage.
🔹 In Bulgaria, it helped justify long-demanded wage indexation reforms despite political instability.

In this comparative study, I look at four very different cases – Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands – and find that, while the Directive’s provisions are procedural and flexible, it has nonetheless reshaped national debates and policy trajectories in meaningful ways:

Open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... [5/5]

The road to publication of this piece was bumpy, with several rejections and (over-)long review processes, including one reviewer going AWOL in the second round. Still, I'm glad it found a home in JCMS and hope my arguments can reinvigorate the (neo-)Polanyian debate on European integration. [4/5]

faced with cumulative challenges to the Union's legitimacy during successive cycles of contention – epitomized by the Euro crisis and Brexit – pro-EU elites have sought to recover support with policies seen (and framed) as responsive to societal demands and the needs of 'ordinary' citizens. [3/5]

Using Polanyi's conceptual apparatus, I argue that recent EU labour-law initiatives go a meaningful way towards 're-embedding' employment relations that have been liberalized for many years. This development, in turn, can be understood as a 'double countermovement': [2/5]

That's the point - context matters. Would the average reader risk associating, say, Geert Wilders with the 19th-century Radical tradition? How many are even aware of the latter's history?

Point being: a quick browse reveals that Economist writers use the term 'radical' in many different senses – yet it should be clear to most readers from the context what is meant by it.

A recent Economist article talks of 'Israel's radical new course in Gaza' - does that have anything to do with Radicalism as a school of thought...?

Mooi! Laat het me weten als je geen toegang tot het artikel hebt - dan stuur ik je even een pdf'je.

My own contribution, dealing with the evolution of EU social policy and governance, is now online – see below. The other publications will be published during the coming days/weeks.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The idea originated with a roundtable at the DVPW congress. After organizing a similar panel at CES, I set up this debate section. It has been a real pleasure to engage, critically but constructively, with such a diverse group of scholars. I can only hope this debate will be continued in the future!

After my brief introduction, Martin Höpner, Susanne Schmidt and Daniel Seikel kick off the discussion, followed by interventions by Martijn van den Brink, Mark Dawson and Jan Zglinski; myself; Waltraud Schelkle; Amandine Crespy; and a final response and reflection by Höpner, Schmidt and Seikel.

Juist vanuit die brugfunctie zou je toch een (iets) constructievere houding verwachten? SE/DK hebben die rol nooit gespeeld, zaten evenzeer op UK-lijn, en hebben parlementen die nóg meer in de subsidiariteitsgroef zitten, maar zijn toch gedraaid – zelfs de Zwedendemocraten steunen het plan!

Ik ben bang dat men punt 1) niet begrijpt, 2) niet gelooft en 3) niet op waarde schat. Zie ook de opinie van Lex Hoogduin in NRC vandaag, met een warrig verhaal over de "afstemmingsproblemen" die gemeenschappelijke investeringen zouden creëren (alsof die problemen er anders niet zijn!)