ShaPE will deepen our understanding of the role played by trade unions, employer organisations and EU institutions in making and shaping Social Europe until now. This new knowledge will help us reflect on what roles they should play in meeting current large-scale challenges, most notably green, digital and demographic transitions as well as the objectives of EU 'open strategic autonomy’ and resilience.
Social Europe’s foundations will be explored through innovative archival and multidisciplinary analysis of EU Treaty-making and law-making, providing a meta-archive and public history digital exhibition to serve as a template and anchor for future research. These foundations will be discussed and disseminated with the aim to bridge multiple perspectives:
- old and newer Member States;
- old and newer generations of social partner representatives;
- contributions from history, law and industrial relations research and various methods and tools for researching Social Europe; and
- insights from social partners and project partners in academia and the policy community.
During the course of the project, ShaPE’s researchers will produce academic analysis as well practice-oriented reports and proposals to update the EU Treaties to enable the social partners to meet future challenges.
ShaPE is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Research outputs:
Publications:
- Kilpatrick, Claire; Steiert, Marc; Cellini, Jacopo, The social partners and EU treatymaking: revisiting Maastricht through the archives, EUI, LAW, AEL, Working Paper, 2025/01. Permanent URL to the open access publication: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/78294
- Kilpatrick, Claire; Steiert, Marc, A little learning is a dangerous thing: AG Emiliou on the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive (C-19/23, Opinion of 14 January 2025), EUI, LAW, Working Paper, 2025/02. Permanent URL to the open access publication: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/77887
- Dorssemont, Filip. The EU Social Dialogue revisited. In: European labour law journal, (2025). Permanent URL to the open access publication: http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/306255
- Archival recommendations on archival research on Social Europe (forthcoming)
- Keune, Maarten. Law-making by European unions and employers: a vision unfulfilled. (forthcoming)
- Dorssemont, Filip; Lamine, Auriane; Keune, Maarten; Vielle, Pascale. European social dialogue case studies (forthcoming)
- Pedersini, Roberto, Leonardi, Salvo, The European Union and industrial relations: between divergence and convergence (forthcoming)