The central aim of the 1994 European Works Councils directive is to establish institutions in transnational enterprises with the explicit purpose of improving the rights of the employees to information and consultation in general, and to information concerning 'transnational questions which significantly affect workers' interests' in particular. Historically, the directive is placed within the context of reform demands from the social democratic mainstream in international trade unionism dating back to the 1960s. Since Commission proposals for such a directive had been strongly opposed and successfully defeated by employer interests, especially UNICE, for a long time, the actual adoption of the directive in September 1994 came as a cold shower for these interests. The development of the tripartite power relationship between the Commission and the peak organizations of labour and capital at European level in the tug of war up to the final adoption of the directive seems to indicate the emergence of a peculiar Euro- corporatism.
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