ABSTRACT
Social dialogues, which constitute instruments of European social policy in general and industrial relations in particular, can take place at two different levels: the intersectoral and the sectoral. Throughout the 1990s, the Commission has transferred parts of its legislative power to the social partners at both the interprofessional as well as the sectoral level. The Commission has always been the most important actor within different settings of social dialogues. Substantial progress on the part of sectoral dialogues in terms of voluntary negotiations resulting in binding outcomes is rather unlikely in the foreseeable future. 'The sectoral social dialogue committee recommends that the guidelines should be adopted by telecommunications companies by the end of 2001, on a voluntary basis and according to the laws and collective bargaining practices of individual countries. Social dialogues would be of the non-binding, pre-Maastricht status only and take the form of trilateral concertation instead of bilateral negotiations and autonomous decisions.
