Abstract

Article 155, para. 2, TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the Euro¬pean Union) allows the European Council to implement (generally by way of directives) the European agreements between the social partners (management and labour). This procedure implies the coordination between two different legal orders: the one generated by the practice of the social partners, and the one expressed by the European Union as a whole. Through the procedure outlined in Article 155, the content of a European collective agreement becomes binding for the Member States, but its inclusion in acts having the form of directives certifies the primacy of the European public law over any other regulatory expression of the “lawµ.