The European Union's commitment to social dialogue remains strong. At least on paper. The March 2025 Pact for European Social Dialogue further formalized the role of trade unions and employers in shaping labour policy by manifesting dialogue and reporting mechanisms as a way to communicate stakeholder concerns.[i] But in domains where mobility and labour rights collide, mainly EU labour mobility within low-wage service sectors, social dialogue so far remains a procedural mechanism largely disconnected from policy outcomes. This disconnection becomes particularly acute in cross-border care work, where structural mobility challenges persist despite plenty stakeholder consultation, as documented in the preliminary outcomes of the 2024-2026 MOBILECARE project.
Credit: European Union
Dialogue without teeth
The 2025 Social Dialogue Pact represents procedural strengthening. Commission consultations on work programmes, funding for social partners and a formal mechanism for receiving joint social partner reports on dialogue implementation all mark institutional progress. Implementation dialogues convened in September 2025 by EC Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu specifically addressed labour mobility in free workers movement, posting, and social security coordination domains.[ii] Yet some might contemplate that the improved institutional visibility veils an asymmetry: consultation and implementation are drifting apart. Social partners negotiate, the Commission listens and reads reports, but following enforcement architectures remains sparse.
Consider the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive (2022/2041)[iii]. Secured through tripartite negotiation some regard it as a cornerstone of the European Pillar of Social Rights Principle 8 on worker involvement. It binds Member States to promote collective bargaining and ensure adequate wages. Member States remain free to define "adequacy", ranging from 46 to 60 percent of average wages. Yet its implementation has been uneven. In November 2025, the UNI Global Union remarks that only Ireland, Latvia, and Lithuania published national action plans promoting collective bargaining[iv]. On the contrary, Denmark challenged the Directive's legal basis[v], arguing it infringes pay sovereignty of Member States. While the European Court of Justice upheld the Directive's validity[vi], the message is clear: social dialogue can produce consensus in talks, it does not ensure implementation.
MobileCare and the gap between evidence and enforcement
The MobileCare project, funded by the European Commission and grounded in multi-country expert dialogue, identified a critical paradox[vii]. Member States exhibit widely divergent social dialogue practices on live-in care mobility. Where national social dialogue on a topic is weak, as in parts of Germany and Southern Europe on live-in caregiving, EU-level consultation produces minimal traction on national level. Where dialogue is stronger, such as Austria and parts of Scandinavia, national-level outcomes can emerge. However, these remain localized and do not scale to EU-wide mobility standards. The project's evidence, informed by Delphi expert panels and stakeholder workshops across seven countries, demonstrates that national labour market institutions shape mobility outcomes far more than the EU-level does.
In this project Germany provides one of several examples of lacking enforcement. EU law permits posting of third-country nationals (TCNs) lawfully employed in one Member State to another without duplicate work permits, as established in Vander Elst (C-43/93) ruling[viii]. Despite Social Dialogue recommendations to align practice with EU law, Germany continues to require separate work authorization for posted TCN caregivers, de facto blocking this mobility pathway. Actors organised within the social dialogue partners of Postcare and Mobilecare that are experimenting with posted TCN placements as late as 2025 reportedly abandoned the model following German enforcement actions and legal advice. All of that despite an EU court ruling that made clear mobility is not to be constrained[ix]. This is not a social dialogue failure; this is a dialogue implementation failure. The rules exist. The dialogue confirmed them. National practice contradicts both.
Sectoral commitments without enforcement
Another example remains to be observed: In June 2025, the European Public Service Union (EPSU) and Social Employers signed a Framework of Action on Retention and Recruitment in social services[x]. A major achievement of the new EU Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for social services. The framework commits to 15 concrete actions across education, safe staffing levels, work-life balance, and collective bargaining[xi]. Yet these remain non-binding recommendations. They require national implementation and further collective agreement in every nation. The EPSU announcement states: This “is both a commitment from the EU level social partners for social services and an urgent call to action for all who shape social services."[xii] A less optimistic translation: EU social partners commit and give guidance; governments are expected to act; but if they do not, the dialogue process was in vain.
Social dialogue fragmenting from within
However, not all social dialogue limits are caused by missing execution. In labour mobility, dialogue often stalls because social partners do not converge. The live-in caregiving sector illustrates this. MOBILECARE and POSTCARE evidence shows employer representatives framing cross-border care primarily as a labour-supply solution under affordability constraints. Long rotations and on-site presence are treated as functional necessities that are considered acceptable regarding a prevailing set of regulatory and market conditions. Unions in contrast define the same practices as structural circumvention of worktime and rest-period rules.[xiii]
The result is not compromise but a mutual silent veto. Dialogues produce abstract consensus goals such as quality care, education and fair conditions, while avoiding operational questions that cannot be agreed upon, such as derogations for practicability or mechanisms to compensate the costs that derive from a lack thereof. Also the 2025 EPSU-Social Employers Framework reflects this: ambitious language, cautious substance. Where dialogue cannot converge, EU institutions have little to transpose and political actors are bound to disappoint in either direction.
A debate worth having
The real question is not whether EU social dialogue exists: it does, increasingly institutionalized and well-funded. Which is a great success. It is important and well worth it to have representatives heard and on board when designing policies, despite all existing shortcomings[xiv]. However, now debate should pivot to whether social dialogue can evolve from procedural consultation into a mechanism with direct links to (labour mobility) policy outcomes. Until social partner agreements carry some weight, e.g. through enforcement plans, EU legal grounding, or explicit transposition obligations with monitoring, they will remain evidence-rich, politically cautious, and limited to practically employ change. The care sector crisis will worsen not because social partners lack a voice, but because that voice has been heard, documented, and politely shelved, if not by the EU then by its member states.
[i] https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-and-social-partners-sign-joint-pact-strengthen-social-dialogue-europe-2025-03-05_en
[ii] https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/implementation-dialogue-fair-labour-mobility-executive-vice-president-roxana-minzatu-2025-09-16_en
[iii] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2041/oj/eng
[iv] https://uniglobalunion.org/news/european-court-of-justice-upholds-eu-minimum-wage-directive/
[v] https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-11/cp250136en.pdf
[vi] https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-welcomes-judgment-eu-court-largely-confirming-validity-directive-adequate-minimum-wages-2025-11-11_en
[vii] http://federacjaprzedsiebiorcow-internationalprojects.eu/mobilecare-social-dialogue-as-a-tool-to-improve-the-conditions-of-functioning-of-intra-eu-labour-mobility-in-home-based-care-services-downloads/
[viii] https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=de&jur=C,T,F&num=C-43/93
[ix] https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=57967&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN
[x] https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-social-partners-commit-tackle-workforce-challenges-social-services-2025-06-26_en
[xi] https://www.socialemployers.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FoA-social-services-signed-26.06.2025.pdf
[xii] https://www.socialemployers.eu/15-actions-for-retention-and-recruitment-of-social-services-workers/
[xiii] https://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/pflege-polin-illegal-ausgebeutet-aber-die-letzte-rettung-accg-110808397.html
[xiv] Cárdenas Domínguez F, Fernández García M, Molinero Gerbeau Y. Revisiting European social dialogue: A systematic literature review. Open Res Eur. 2025 Oct 10;5:309. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.21020.1. PMID: 41394323; PMCID: PMC12701336.
All sources last accessed: 30.12.2025