"The European social dialogue provides for the signing of agreements between employers' associations and trade unions organised the European level. Effectiveness to a great extent depends on of hierarchy, which is cast by the threat of legislative action and implementation of collective agreements through public intervention. need for the shadow is illustrated by the initial priority given agreements and the problems of implementation of more recent statutory agreements. While the shadow of hierarchy is important the effectiveness of social dialogue, social dialogue procedures characterised by strong principal-agent relationships. In particular, statutory agreements stem from a bottom-up private sector-inspired dition of industrial relations. Even in the case of statutory agreements, European Commission, as principal, does not appoint the agent delegation is implicit rather than explicit. Moreover, successful entirely depends on whether the agents reach agreement between selves. While the Commission could revoke delegation if Community objectives are not realised and by setting statutory criteria for implementing an agreement, its room for manoeuvre is limited for reasons pragmatism"

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