ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the worsening of trade union bargaining power and collective bargaining autonomy is much more dependent on the overall ability to activate resources for mobilisation than on European integration. It examines the perspective and argues that the pressures on European trade unionism are by no means only produced by European integration. The chapter shows that the authoritarian regime imposed on collective wage bargaining by the Troika and under the leading role of individual nation-states needs to be seen as a case study for the much more general phenomenon of authoritarian capitalism. Neoliberal reform agendas and attacks on collective bargaining exist with, through, and within but also without, against, and outside European governance institutions. The specific situation is that monetary integration has produced a short period of prosperity in the European South through the introduction of the Euro that led to the convergence of interest rates.
