The meeting took place in the context of the macroeconomic dialogue – a biannual forum for information exchange and discussion between the European Central Bank, the European Council, the European Commission and the European social partners (ETUC, CEEP, BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME).

The trade unions underlined the need for collective and coordinated European solutions to save jobs and businesses in the current crisis. They stressed the need for higher wages through collective bargaining to help working people cope with soaring consumer and energy prices, and they strongly countered the notion of a wage-driven inflation.

Trade unions also called for taxes on profits to enable investment in economic modernisation and to facilitate the green and digital transition, urgent action on energy prices and a reform of Europe’s energy markets. Foremost, they insisted on support for workers affected by the crisis and called for a new solidarity mechanism like SURE, that helped support national short-term work schemes during the pandemic.

Given the strong impact of the crisis on the manufacturing sector, industriAll Europe’s General Secretary, Luc Triangle, was invited to attend the macroeconomic dialogue on 7 November alongside the ETUC to present his views.


The energy price crisis has put enormous pressure on manufacturing industries, especially in energy-intensive sectors that employ some 8 million workers in the EU. Luc Triangle reported on company and site closures, production stops and lay-offs that can be witnessed across Europe. He warned that recent decisions of European businesses to invest outside the EU due to soaring energy costs - a highly alarming development that was also pointed out by employers during the dialogue - could turn into an existential crisis for some European industries.

Luc Triangle thus called for urgent measures to protect jobs in industry and to provide support for companies struggling with energy costs. He insisted that such support comes with social conditionality: guarantees to save jobs and increase wages, respect for trade union rights and participation in social dialogue and collective bargaining.

The discussions at the macroeconomic dialogue are informal, confidential and non-binding. No formal conclusions are drawn after the meetings, short statements of the major actors are published in a press release. They are nevertheless an opportunity for an exchange of views between social partners and policy makers, and as such an expression of the European social model.

Speech of ETUC General Secretary to EU Macroeconomic Dialogue: here