Mutual recognition gone wrong? The case of posted workers

Abstract Mutual recognition is a cornerstone of European integration, enabling cooperation across diverse policy fields while allowing the Union to pursue unity without uniformity. Yet, the Posted Workers saga – widely framed as a tale of tension between social rights and economic freedoms – exposes some of its limits. This paper uses the Posted Workers saga as a case study of mutual recognition. Empirically, it draws on the legislative negotiations behind the 1996 and 2018 Directives and case law from Rush to Laval , to examine legislative intent. The analysis shows that the 1996 Directive was not primarily concerned with protecting workers but with regulating the cross-border provision of labour via the freedom to provide services, through a mutual recognition mechanism. The mechanism was asymmetrical by design: it privileged certain Member States’ labour rules over others to address social dumping. The Directive was intended to create a ceiling – rather than a floor – of standards under Article 3(1), subject to narrow exceptions. Conceptually, the paper argues that mutual recognition operates as a generative yet fragile mode of integration. It is generative, fostering coordination between Member States and enabling free movement. Yet it remains fragile where the interpretations of the ‘content’ of such rules diverge. In the Posted Workers context, such divergence is evident via the conflicting understandings of ‘minimum rates of pay’. The paper concludes that while mutual recognition can facilitate diversity, it cannot indefinitely substitute for substantive political engagement in defining the content and scope of shared rules.