Trusting judges to deliver changes: Italy, the EU and labour law

The paper looks into the slow and at times controversial process of ‘Europeanising’ the Italian legal system, in order to exemplify how adaptation to changes takes place within entire branches of the state administration. Three examples are selected, all within the domain of labour law: state aid illegally granted to support training and work experience contracts; fixed term labour contracts in the public sector; free movement of foreign language assistants. Multi-level regulatory techniques are at the origin of adaptation, geared by institutional and quasi-institutional actors. The main emphasis is on national judges engaging in a dialogue with the ECJ and delivering changes into the legal order as a whole.