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The Directive on European Works Councils only applies to countries in the European Union. EWCs are for information and consultation in TNCs. They provide European workers with an important opportunity to build links and share information. But there is also the danger that workers in Europe will isolate themselves from other groups of workers based in the same company in other parts of the world. As Dan Gallin, ex-General Secretary of the IUF warns:

" This carries the danger of fostering the notion that a European organisation is an end in itself, and of strengthening nationalist propaganda casting the workers of other regions as competitors and enemies".

In its draft guidelines for the setting up of European Works Councils, the IUF has said:

"The process creating EWCs should be seen as part of an overall global trade union strategy to build effective union influence within transnational companies.Very few companies are exclusively "European" and even less exclusively "EU".

In the medium term this should mean that the existence of European structures should be used by European members of the IUF to raise the concerns of unions outside Europe. The preparatory union meetings which should precede all EWC meetings should also be open to non-European union representing workers in the company as full participants. The IUF should act as an information and co-ordination channel in cases where this cannot happen.

European Works Council meetings should be constantly under pressure from our side to expand them into global meetings with, as a minimum, the right to raise issues affecting workers in the company in any country and at best the participation of representatives from countries outside Europe as observers or full participants in the meetings with management".