ShaPE – The Social Partners as shapers and makers of Social Europe (2024-2025)

The ShaPE project was a two-year EU-funded research initiative aimed at deepening the understanding of how European social partners have contributed to shaping Social Europe, and how their role can be strengthened to address current and future challenges. Led by the European University Institute (EUI), the project ran from January 2024 to December 2025 and was co-funded under the call Improving expertise in the field of industrial relations under the SOCPL budget line.

At a time when Europe is facing major transformations, including the green, digital and demographic transitions, ShaPE explored the historical foundations of social dialogue and the role of social partners in EU treaty-making and law-making. The project combined archival research, legal and policy analysis, and industrial relations expertise to better understand the role social partners have played in the development of the EU social dimension.

SGI Europe contributed to the project as an Associated Partner, alongside ETUC, ETUI and the Jean Monnet Association. In this role, SGI Europe opened its archives to the project, supporting the collection of key materials and contributing to the dialogue between researchers, social partners and policy stakeholders.

Project objectives and outcomes

The ShaPE project aimed to create new knowledge on the role of social partners in making and shaping Social Europe, while reflecting on how this role should evolve in light of current challenges.

The specific objectives and outcomes of the project were to:

reconstruct the historical role of social partners in the development of Social Europe through innovative archival research;
analyse the involvement of social partners in EU Treaty-making and social policy law-making;
bring together historical, legal and industrial relations perspectives on the evolution of European social dialogue;
develop a ShaPE meta-archive, hosted by the Historical Archives of the European Union, which gathers and maps 255 files linked to the role of social partners in Treaty-making and law-making for Social Europe, with a particular focus on the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Social Policy Agreement;
develop the digital exhibition Social Europe 1984-1994: Social Partners and European Integration which presents a selection of archival sources, photographs, videos, first-person accounts and oral history interviews to explain how European institutions and social partner organisations discussed, negotiated and operationalised the social dimension of European integration, including the Social Policy Agreement of the Maastricht Treaty;
formulate a forward-looking report and a related set of recommendations on the future of EU social policies and social dialogue policy in light of major changes affecting work, social dialogue and European integration.

The project’s final conference, held at the European Parliament in Brussels on 9 December 2025, provided an opportunity to present these outcomes to EU institutions, social partners, academics, policymakers and civil society.

Key messages

The ShaPE project shows that European social partners have played a decisive role in shaping Social Europe, including through their contribution to EU Treaty-making and social policy law-making.

The project’s findings highlight three main dimensions:

the historical role played by social partners in shaping the foundations of Social Europe;
the limits and inconsistencies affecting social partner participation in EU law-making;
the need to better equip the EU framework to support social dialogue, European social partner agreements and cross-border collective bargaining.

Building on these findings, the legacy of ShaPE underlines the need to reconnect today’s social dialogue with its historical ambition. Social partners should be able to contribute to EU policy direction from an early stage, rather than only reacting to initiatives already defined by EU institutions.

This is particularly relevant in the context of the green, digital and demographic transitions, which are reshaping labour markets, skills needs and working conditions across Europe. Against this background, ShaPE calls for a stronger anchoring of social rights and social dialogue in the EU framework, as part of a renewed Social Europe built on social justice, decent work and upward social convergence.