The importance of the Directive on the European Company stems from the confirmation of participation as a right of workers to have a say in the company’s governance bodies. The lack of definitions in the directive and its nature of being soft law do not result, in this case, from the neoliberal hegemony in the process of European integration, but from deeper and more complex factors which impede the integration in the social sphere. Before this background, the article examines "negotiated Europeanization" as the only possible way and the mechanisms which it implies (semantic vagueness - necessary not only for connecting and transcending the diverse national traditions, but also as discursive vehicle for the social construction of a "European identity" - and the activation of institutional myths). In conclusion, the relevance of loose couplings, both institutional and organisational, between the national systems and actors and the European level is underlined.
Keywords: Codetermination, Europe, identity, participation, soft law, trade unions