What's Left for ‘Social Europe’? Brexit and Transnational Labour Market Regulation in the UK-1 and the EU-27

ABSTRACT

The paper examines UK government positions on the regulation of transnational labour in the context of Brexit. Through an analysis of EU regulations on posted workers – the practice whereby a company based in one EU member state sends workers to carry out a service in another EU member state – the paper argues that the UK has consistently advocated further liberalisation of transnational labour markets in EU level decision-making, a position consistent with promoting increasingly ‘flexible’ labour markets at home. Brexit marks a turning point. Demands from British workers for stronger protection against liberalising pressure help explain the UK's recent shift towards relaxing its opposition to ‘market-correcting’ EU initiatives like the revised posted worker directive. Brexit provides a window of opportunity for the revitalisation of ‘Social Europe’ in the EU-27, without a longstanding veto player at the bargaining table, but one more likely focused more on upholding national labour protections than initiating new supranational policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Brexit
• Social Europe
• British labour market
• European Union
• posted workers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Nicole Lindstrom is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York. She is the author of The politics of Europeanization and post-socialist transformations (Palgrave 2015) and numerous articles examining the relationship between the European Union and new post-socialist member states.

Notes

1. The revised PWD proposal encountered another roadblock when France, which had spearheaded the tightened PWD rules at the EU level, witnessed proliferation of so-called Molière clauses passed by local French authorities, which require workers on public sites to speak French. An MEP expressed concerns that this would undermine the PWD proposal by justifying nationalist protectionist exemptions, remarking: ‘Next they will create a Shakespeare clause, a Goethe clause, or maybe even an Orbán clause’ (Stupp and Barbière 2017). The French government successfully convinced authorities to abandon Molière clauses.