European social dialogue

The European Economic and Social Committee marked the 20th anniversary of the European social dialogue – relaunched on 12 January 1985 – on Thursday 14 April 2005. On this occasion, Jacques Delors, who initiated the relaunch of the European social dialogue, gave a speech. His two speeches are reproduced below. The first was delivered at the opening of the proceedings and the second at the conclusion of a day rich in debate and reflection on how to continue the process begun 20 years ago.

“Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank the Economic and Social Committee for organising this conference. I see it less as a celebration of an anniversary than as a unique opportunity, given the quality of the assembly, to reflect both on the future of social dialogue in the European Union and on the new and old forms of democracy. Then, more generally, on the future of industrial relations (to use the real terms) in European countries. In these few words, I would first like to emphasise that social dialogue, or attempts at social dialogue, have a long history dating back to the 1960s. In a book on the twenty years of social dialogue, two researchers, Claude Didry and Arnaud Mias, who are here today, devoted a whole section of their work to explaining all the attempts that were made at that time: the cooperation launched between the Commission and the trade unions; the beginnings of the tripartite meetings in 1970, bringing together political institutions, employers and trade unions, which ended in 1977; the much-discussed Vredeling draft directive; and even the Lyon-Caen report, which attempted to identify the specific nature of the Community dimension in relation to other dimensions. All of this needed to be recalled.”