Legislation on minimum wages exists in most EU Member States, but European trade unions have very different views on it. Nordic unions are especially negative, whereas many other union organizations are strongly positive. The present article examines these differences, explores how they can be understood and discusses their possible consequences for transnational union cooperation on issues related to statutory minimum wages. It is primarily based on survey and interview data.

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This article addresses recent developments in the debate on a European minimum wage and tries to shed light on the Swedish standpoint, which from a European perspective might be difficult to comprehend. The article argues that even though the ETUC secretariat has tried to find a balance among the member organisations regarding the EU initiative on a fair minimum wage, it is far from enough from a Swedish and Nordic perspective. Issues such as how to approach collective bargaining, how to think about minimum wages and the role of the government in industrial relations cause problems when unions that operate in relatively diverse institutional contexts try to cooperate. It is therefore likely that the EU minimum wage will continue to be at the core of European trade union discussions in the coming years. At the same time, institutional differences between countries are not the only factors determining union cooperation in Europe. Contextual factors also matter.

This article analyses the speech activities of trade unions at European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Executive Committee meetings, 2005Committee meetings, -2012. It is based on the minutes of 48 meetings and direct observations of some of them. The most frequent themes are economic issues, communications and labour law, followed by common activities and intra-organizational issues. Analysis by different regime types shows marked differences in the extent and focus of participation; an important factor behind these differences appears to be the unions' role in their national industrial relations systems. The impact of the economic crisis in Southern Europe is also highly visible. Another aspect is the number of seats the organizations hold, mirroring size as well as financial and human resources. Moreover, speech patterns seem to reflect ideological and cultural differences.

Although the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the Laval case has been thoroughly examined from both legal and political perspectives, few references have been made to its implications for cross-border trade union cooperation. Using qualitative data from interviews with European trade union representatives, this article explores whether Laval hampered or stimulated transnational cooperation and mobilization.The analysis reveals that, although the interviewees identified the Laval case as particularly significant, they had difficulty mapping out a common route for dealing with the potential consequences of the case, such as wage dumping. Competing discourses co-existed as to the measures to be taken, displaying important and historically rooted differences between European trade unions regarding the context, scope and objectives of transnational collective action. In contrast, it could be argued that the risk of wage dumping arising from the Laval case and the ongoing discussion to find ways to manage this risk led European trade unions to address controversial issues that were in need of attention. It emerges from the interview materials that the management of these issues arguably entailed mobilization but, above all, the effect on transnational union relations appeared to be constitutive.