The risk that multinational business would take advantage of the European single market and its single currency by playing off one country’s workers and governments against another’s is not new; it has been recognized from the very start of the big European projects such as monetary union and the completion of the single market. At that time (the early 1990s), trade unions nevertheless accepted the economic logic of the single market and its single currency because they had been promised a Social Europe in return. Here, the “social” logic balancing the “economic” logic consisted of a set of European social directives formulating minimum standards and workers’ rights being taken out of the competition process, thus ensuring fair competition or a level playing fi eld for the internal market. Th ese directives aimed, for example, at making sure that all Member States respect a maximum limit to the working week, that health and safety regulations are in place, that all workers have a right to paid holiday and that there are maternity leave provisions