"Towards a European IR-System? The Implications of the Maastricht Treaty for Danish Industrial Relations"

Jensen, Carsten Stroby and Madsen, Jorgen Steen and Due, Jesper. (1993) "Towards a European IR-System? The Implications of the Maastricht Treaty for Danish Industrial Relations". In: UNSPECIFIED, Washington, DC. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[From the Introduction]. As suggested above, the integration logic evident in the pattern of European cooperation has apparently lost its potency following the agreement on the Maastricht treaty reached at government level at the end of 1991. The question is whether it has now become necessary to reassess the thrust and significance of national institutional structures in line with predictions of a federal Europe? This is the question that Streeck poses with regard to the development and nature of industrial relations in Europe. Our paper addresses this question, taking the Danish industrial relations system as the point of departure. Firstly, we shall briefly outline the key elements in what we refer to as the Danish Model of industrial relations. Secondly, we shall report the main viewpoints influencing the actors on the Danish labour market, determining their positions on cooperation on the ECs social and labour market policy. The attitudes of the actors to what Streeck terms "upward delegation" and the background forming these attitudes will constitute the core of the analysis. In a Danish context, the actors' willingness to support EC integration in the area of social and labour market policy has also been shaped by consideration of the possibilities of achieving what Streeck refers to as "horizontal interdependence" between the various European IR-systems. The paper also treats some aspects of this phenomenon. The third section of the analysis concentrates on the problems for the Danish Model which may derive from co-operation on the ECs social and labour market policy. It will include consideration of how these problems influence the willingness of the actors to accept the creation of a European industrial relations system. This part of the analysis thus focuses on the consequences of what Streeck terms "downward intervention". Fourthly - and finally - we shall review the aggregate contribution of the Danish IR-system to the creation of a European IR-system in line with the provisions of the Maastricht agreement.

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