The ILO (International Labour Organization) defines social dialogue to include all types of negotiation, consultation and exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers and workers on issues of common interest. But social dialogue actually varies from country to country and from region to region: just to quote two of the most meaningful models, Germany adopted the form of the “Mitbestimmung”, so that employers and workers share the full responsibility of the undertakings (through the composition of  the Board of Directors, where the workers’ representatives are involved in all the decisions concerning the company), Italy adopted the so called “ concertation” , which is applied not only to the companies’ strategies, contracts and other internal questions and affairs, but also to the “territorial pacts” for employment and development actions.
These two examples are a proof that the social dialogue can be achieved  in different forms : “vertical” in Germany, basically focused on the full implementation of participatory tools “ within” the companies, “horizontal” in Italy, focused on the co-operative actions about the “externalities” factors of the growth, to ensure an effective employment policy, although the industrial relations “in” the companies are steadily in conflict.

The goals of the project

The main goal of social dialogue itself is to promote consensus building and democratic involvement among the main stakeholders in the world of work.
But in the modern society (the society of the network, as Manuel Castells wrote), successful social dialogue structures and processes have the potential to resolve also important economic and social issues, encourage good governance, advance social and industrial peace and stability and boost economic progress.
Therefore, the social dialogue should explore new forms of :

1. enrichment : the best practices of the different  European countries in this field are not yet well known and proven, so that the advantages of the “German” model could be adopted and adapted by other state member, if applicable, and the successful experiences of the “Italian” model in the territorial pacts for employment and local development could be better “disseminated” through the other European members, taking into consideration the importance and relevance assigned by the EU to the “bottom up “ policies and subsidiarity in the regional development programmes and the “governance” styles required therein. The same conclusion concerns also the existing best practices of the social dialogue in the other European member states.