Enforcing Social Europe through Labour Inspectorates: Changes in Capacity and Cooperation across Europe

Abstract

Despite its central importance for the implementation of EU social policy, the issue of member state enforcement of European regulations has attracted little academic attention. This paper analyses changes in national enforcement systems and horizontal cooperation between them by comparing labour inspectorates in the EU-15 member states over time (2000 versus 2010). Starting from the assumption that, as administrations, enforcement systems are strongholds of national sovereignty, it is argued that member states’ interest in creating a level playing field and in enabling free movement in accordance with the ‘four freedoms’ should nevertheless bring about change. The results show insufficient enforcement capacity overall, but also that important changes have taken place regarding the coordination, steering and pressure capacity of national labour inspectorates, and also regarding cooperation amongst them. This points to the emergence of horizontal cooperation as a distinct feature of the European Administrative Space.

Acknowledgements

The article was written with the assistance of a Schumpeter Fellowship from the Volkswagen Foundation. It also benefited from a project conducted at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne (2000−03) and from a period of work experience at the ILO (2003−04). I thank the participants of the workshop ‘Implementing Social Europe in Times of Crisis’, the editors of the special issue, and Gerda Falkner, Julia Metz and Zuzana Murdoch for helpful comments. I am indebted to Christine Hocker and Yann Lorenz for research assistance.

Notes

1. However, the reverse is not necessarily true, since even without enforcement implementation might take place. Over a large number of cases, however, we might expect enforcement to make a systematic difference to successful application.

2. Examples of this awareness are the major demonstration in Brussels organised by trade unions (23 January 2013), the resolution on ‘effective labour inspections as a strategy to improve working conditions’ adopted by the European Parliament (14 January 2014) and the critical reaction of the ETUC to the Council agreement reached on the Enforcement Directive of the Posting of Workers Directive (6 December 2013).

3. To preserve anonymity, I refer to interviews by abbreviation (COM for European Commission, ILO for International Labour Organization, A for Austria, etc.), number and date. I thank the interviewees for having shared their time and their expertise with me.

4. The assumed effect of penalty severity has been challenged, however (Tsebelis 1990).

5. A prominent alternative is the management approach, which sees non-compliance as driven by incapacity and rule ambiguity and thus advocates the transfer of resources and knowledge. Norm-based approaches, in turn, are distinctly different in that they understand application as following from social internalisation and acceptance of a norm. It is therefore important to keep in mind that enforcement systems often comprise additional dimensions that would require further research to ultimately assess their capacity.

6. The number of inspection visits could have been used as an alternative or complementary indicator but had to be excluded because this feature was not surveyed in 2000. What is more, as a comparative indicator they have a distortive effect, for example with respect to the size of the enterprise visited or the ratio of proactive and reactive control visits.

7. Homepage of the secretariat of the SLIC located in the Directorate for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=148&langId=en&intPageId=685 (accessed 10 February 2014).

8. Public inspection competences were transferred to Catalonia in 2010. This, however, is not related to the issues discussed here, but part of a broader devolution process.

9. Ultimately, the answer will also depend on the magnitude of cross-border movements, as well as addressees’ interest in exploiting lacunae that currently exist.