Syrpis, Phil --- "Should the EU be Attempting to Harmonise National Systems of Labour Law?" [2012] ELECD 367; in Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla (eds), "Theory and Practice of Harmonisation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Theory and Practice of Harmonisation

Editor(s): Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800013

Section: Chapter 23

Section Title: Should the EU be Attempting to Harmonise National Systems of Labour Law?

Author(s): Syrpis, Phil

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

23. Should the EU be attempting to
harmonise national systems of labour
law?*
Phil Syrpis**

INTRODUCTION
Throughout the history of European integration, harmonisation has occurred
in a piecemeal fashion. Combinations of political factors determine whether
particular policy areas become candidates for harmonisation. Likewise, politi-
cal contingencies dictate not only whether harmonisation initiatives come to
fruition, but also the form which any such measures take.
Many of the chapters in this collection address arguments for and against
harmonisation of particular aspects of law and practice within the EU. My
contention is that it is important to distinguish between the range of principled
arguments which may be made both in favour of, and against, various harmo-
nisation initiatives; and on the basis of these distinctions, to attempt to identify
criteria which may be used in order to locate those policy areas which may, or
may not, be candidates for harmonisation.
The focus of this contribution is labour law. The role of the EU in labour
law has always been contentious. There are a number of plausible rationales
for EU intervention in domestic labour law. A crucial question is the extent to
which these various rationales call for harmonisation or approximation;1 for the
purposes of this chapter, this is taken to involve the elimination (or at least the
reduction) of differences between the labour law regimes of the Member States.


* A version of this chapter appears in European Business Law Review 143 (2010).
** University of Bristol, UK.
1
It seems that the ...