Die Europäischen Gewerkschaftsverbände: Zur Entwicklung ihrer Machtressourcen und Funktionsprofile

The article examines how the power resources, tasks and policies of the European trade union federations (ETUFs) changed in the course of the financial crisis which started in 2007/2008. The analysis illustrates that neither of the two conceivable extreme scenarios have materialised: re-nationalisation trends did not block transnational trade union cooperation or erode the ETUFs’ capacity to act ; nor did increased transnational solidarity requirements lead to intensified transnational cooperation under the umbrella of the ETUFs. What we can observe instead are only gradual changes occurring over time and varying by policy area ; hence, compared to the pre-crisis period, the ETUFs’ current state can be characterised as status quo ante overall. The article, however, also shows that partially weakened national power resources and a trend towards an increased heterogeneity of national trade union interests have made the formulation of joint European strategies even more difficult today than in the past.