The Role of Labour and Associated EU Liberalization Challenges: Insights from the Port Sector

Abstract:

An influential argument holds that labour unions are not likely to succeed in their objectives through current European decision-making processes. In addition, the European Union has extensive leverage to introduce negative integration due to asymmetries towards liberalization in the treaties. Given such arguments it is of interest to study a case, where attempts of EU liberalization reform have failed and labour unions claim this is their victory. An in-depth analysis of the decision-making process of the proposal for a Port Directive highlights that labour unions are most influential when they are able to exploit the division of industry interests to resoundingly oppose policy change. Moreover, the analysis highlights the importance of including large societal groups in consultations.