Sectoral Agreements Research Articles

Measuring improvements in sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa

Recent studies on development aid from European donors revealed that their funding of the health sector in sub-Saharan Africa rarely includes performance measures suitable for tracking operational progress in improving sexual and reproductive health and rights. Analysis of health sector agreements verifies this. Particularly lacking are metrics related to four critically important areas: 1) reducing mortality and morbidity from unsafe abortion, 2) preventing and treating gender-based violence, 3) reducing unwanted pregnancies among the poorest women, and 4) reducing unwanted pregnancies among adolescents. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, the authors interviewed 85 experts in health service delivery, ministries of health, human rights, development economics and social science from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the United States. We asked them to identify measures to assess progress in these areas, and built on their responses to propose up to four practical performance measures for each of the areas, for inclusion in health sector support agreements. These measures are meant to supplement, not replace, current population-based measures such as changes in maternal mortality ratios. The feasibility of using these performance measures requires political commitment from donors and governments, investment in baseline data, and expanding the role of sexual and reproductive health and rights civil society in determining priorities.

Labour market reforms in Italy and Spain: diversity and convergence

FOCUS □ AUSTERITY ANDTRADEUNIONRIGHTSIN EUROPE Labour market reforms in Italy and Spain: diversity and convergence The pressure Southern drastic from Europe labour the market since European 2010 reforms under Commission passed direct in Southern Europe since 2010 underdirect pressurefromthe European Commission andtheEuropean Central Bank('ECB'),andindirect pressure from theGerman government, raise important questions on thedirection ofemployment relations andevenofdemocracy. Spainand Italy, as from June2012,have not neededrescuefrom theIMFand are notunder direct supervision, buthave been forcedbythe sovereign debt crisisto complywithunprecedentedrequirements from theEC and theECB. As an urgent condition forobtaining ECB intervention on thesovereign bondssecondary market , ina fewmonths bothcountries passeddeeper reforms thanovertheprevioustwenty years, withverylittle debateand socialnegotiations. If implemented, by decentralising collectivebargaining , liberalising employment protection and raisingthe retirement age, the reforms would produce a systemicchange in the so-called 'Mediterranean' employment and socialmodel. Two policy proposalshave been particular important fortheEC andtheECB since2010:the approaching ofcollective bargaining to thecompanyandto productivity, andtheliberalisation of employment protection through a flexible 'single open-ended contract' that wouldovercome labour market segmentation. Interestingly, there islittle or no evidencethatsuch proposalsmayhelp the economy orthelabour market, especially ata time ofrecession. Moreover, they contradict many ofthe previous Commission's Directorate General ('DG') forEmployment and SocialAffairs own elaboration ,expressed in particular in 2006 in boththe Employment inEurope andtheIndustrial Relations in Europereports, which acknowledgedsome advantages of employment protection legislation for human capital investment, andofco-ordinated collective bargaining to increase productivity and stabilise wagedevelopments. Theshift ofdecisionmaking powerfrom theDG forEmployment and SocialAffairs to theEcoFinCounciland theECB hascoincided withtheabandonment ofexpertise onthesocialsideoflabourmarket, andtheadoptionofsimplistic targets of flexibility and decentralisation . Italy Italy hadpassedimportant labourmarket reforms in 1997 and 2003,whichcorresponded to the fastest processof liberalisation amongstOECD countries in thelasttwodecades. However,the reforms had been conducted through socialdialogue ,withtripartite agreements (althoughthe largest union, CGIL,didnotsubscribe tothe2003 reform), and respectedthe core principles of multi-employer collective bargaining and ofprotection against dismissal. Whenin 2002thegovernment threatened thereform ofdismissal protection (art.18oftheWorkers' Statute of1970),a three-million demonstration ofCGILforceditto backtrack. Until thecrisis, Italy seemeda case of relatively enduring strength ofcollective bargainingand tradeunionism. Atthebeginning ofthe crisis, short-working time programmesand responsive tradeunionsallowedItaly tomaintain employment levelsdespitea sharpfallin GDP, similarly as in Germany. However,the country entered thecrisis withtwomajor economicproblems :highpublicdebtinherited from the1980s, whichmadethecountry very vulnerable ata time of crisis;and a productivity decline since the introduction of the Euro in 1999, which had worsenedcompetitiveness, especiallyin sectors with important new entrants such as Eastern Europe and China. Pressureon social rights steadily increased. In January 2009, the employer confederation Confindustria andtheunionsCISLandUILagreed a reform ofcollective bargaining, reducing wage indexation guarantees, despiteoppositionfrom CGIL. Moredrastic changeswere introduced in 2010-11bythelargest Italianindustrial company Fiat, nowcontrolling Chrysler andmanagedbyan Italo-American CEO, Sergio Marchionne.By threatening relocationto Poland, Marchionne couldobtaintheconsent ofCISLand UIL,and of a majority ofemployees inreferenda, tonewplant and companyagreements outsidethe sectoral metalworking agreement,introducing notably moreworking timeflexibility, anda peace clause. The Fiatagreements were of historic relevance becauseItaly had livedsince1948undertheillusionof an ergaomnessystem of sectoral agreements : whilenotlegally binding technically, sectoral agreements wereroutinely usedbythecourts as reference forsetting theconstitutional rights to fair wage and fair working time.The Fiatagreementsaffected unionrecognition too: by abandoning multi-employer agreements. Fiatalsowithdrewfrom theone of1993onthesystem ofworkplace unionrepresentation, and could de-recogniseall unionsthathad notsignedthecompany agreement, including CGIL,thelargest unionin thecompany, andinthemetalworking sector. On 28 June 2011 a new tripartite agreement was signed(including byCGIL)toreform sectoral collectiveagreements , allowingmore decentralisation , butstill ina co-ordinated way. In August thesituation precipitated becauseof financialturmoilin the Eurozone. Following unsustainable increasesinthespreadofgovernmentbonds ,on 5 August, theEuropeanCentral Bank's incumbent and elect presidents, JeanClaudeTrichet andMarioDraghi, wroteletters to theItalianand Spanishgovernments, askingfor austerity budgetmeasures, structural and constiEU institutions have abandoned expertiseon the social side of labour marketin simplistictargets offlexibility and decentralisation GUGLIELMO MEARDI is Professor of Industrial Relations atthe University of Warwick Page 3Volume 19Issue 22012 INTERNATIONAL union rights FOCUS □ AUSTERITY ANDTRADEUNIONRIGHTSIN EUROPE I untouchable, amended thought Constitution, scarcely The previously Spanish debate almost of with was any as Constitution, previously thoughtofas almost untouchable,was amended with scarcely any debate tutional reforms as implicit conditions forintervening ,fromthe following week, on the secondary marketsand purchasingItalian (and Spanish) bonds. The two crucial measures (besidepublicservices reforms) were:to 'further reform the collectivewage bargaining system allowingfirm-level agreements to tailorwages and working conditions to firms' specificneeds and increasing theirrelevancewithrespectto otherlayers ofnegotiations'; and to undertake 'a thorough review oftherulesregulating thehiring and dismissalof employees'.A further request fromthe ECB was the amendmentof the Constitution to...

Which Policy Instruments to Induce Clean Innovating?

In view of the sizeable climate change challenge, we need a clean innovation machine operating at full speed. Beyond the supply of public clean R&D infrastructure and clean public purchases, the development and adoption of new clean technologies by the private sector needs to be assured to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. The private clean innovation machine, left on its own, is not up to this challenge. It needs government intervention to address the combination of environmental and knowledge externalities and overcome path dependencies. A technology policy for climate change requires a combination of technology supply side instruments next to demand-inducing instruments. The firm level evidence presented in this contribution on the motives of private sector firms for introducing clean innovations from the latest Flemish CIS eco-innovation survey confirms that firms are responsive to eco-policy demand interventions. The high importance of demand pull from customers and voluntary codes of conduct or voluntary sector agreements as drivers for introducing clean innovations, is a reminder of the internal strength of the private innovation machine, which governments need to leverage. Policy interventions are more powerful to induce the adoption and development of new clean technologies when designed in policy mix and time consistently, affecting future expectations.

Activating the Private Clean Innovation Machine

In view of the sizeable climate change challenge, we need a clean innovation machine operating at full speed. The private clean innovation machine, left on its own, is not up for this challenge. It needs government intervention to address the combination of environmental and knowledge externalities and overcome path dependencies. The firm level evidence presented in this contribution on the motives of private sector firms for introducing clean innovations from the latest Flemish CIS eco-innovation survey confirms that firms are responsive to eco-policy interventions. It is however not a panacea. The high importance of demand pull from customers and voluntary codes of conduct or voluntary sector agreements as drivers for introducing clean innovations, is a reminder of the internal strength of the private innovation machine, which government should try to leverage. The evidence is also strongly suggestive of how important the details of the policy design are. Policy interventions are more powerful to induce the adoption and development of new clean technologies when designed time consistently, affecting future expectations.

The Institutional Context of an ‘Empirical Law’: The Wage Curve under Different Regimes of Collective Bargaining

AbstractThe wage curve postulates that the wage level is a decreasing function of the regional unemployment rate. In testing this hypothesis, most studies have not taken into account that differences in the institutional framework may have an impact on the existence (or the slope) of a wage curve. Using a large‐scale linked employer–employee dataset for Western Germany, this article provides a first direct test of the relevance of different bargaining regimes (and of works councils) for the existence of a wage curve. In pooled regressions for the period 1998 to 2006, as well as in worker‐level or plant‐level fixed‐effects estimations, we obtain evidence for a wage curve for plants with a collective bargaining agreement at firm level. The point estimates for this group of plants are close to the −0.1 elasticity of wages with respect to unemployment postulated by Blanchflower and Oswald. In this regime, we also find that works councils dampen the adjustment of wages to the regional unemployment situation. In the other regimes of plants that either do not make use of collective contracts or apply sectoral agreements, we do not find a wage curve.

Paying More than Necessary? The Wage Cushion in Germany

Using a representative establishment data set for Germany, we show that more than 40 percent of plants covered by collective agreements pay wages above the level stipulated in the agreement, which gives rise to a wage cushion between the levels of actual and contractual wages. Cross-sectional and fixed-effects estimations for the period 2001-2006 indicate that the wage cushion mainly varies with the profit situation of the plant and with indicators of labour shortage and the business cycle. While plants bound by multi-employer sectoral agreements seem to pay wage premiums in order to overcome the restrictions imposed by the rather centralized system of collective bargaining in Germany, plants which make use of single-employer agreements are significantly less likely to have wage cushions.

The Fragmentation of International Trade Law: Is Now the Time for Variable Geometry?

This article deals with international trade law at various levels of governance. Multilateralism has dominated international relations in the various fields of international economic law such as international trade law and international monetary law after World War II - thereby giving birth to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/Word Trade Organization (WTO) and to the International Monetary Fund, respectively. At first, international trade agreements were bilateral. Then came the GATT 1947, which multilateralized bilateral trade agreements. Years later, international trade law saw the collapse of multilateralism in 1979, which broke down during the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations. A series of new plurilateral (or selectively multilateral) agreements were adopted during the Tokyo Round, which caused a fragmentation of the multilateral trading system. In 1994, international trade law was again multilateralized with the WTO Agreement. This article suggests variable geometry (that is, the idea that only a few WTO Members will benefit from plurilateral agreements on several topics on the agenda) and sectoral agreements as the way forward to unblock the multilateral trading system. The variable-geometry approach has the advantage of removing the current frustration at the WTO negotiating table - and sometimes violent protests organized by civil society - with its slow negotiating pace.

„Die Flexibilität unbezahlter Zeit“ – Die strategische Nutzung von Leiharbeit / “The flexibility of unpaid time” – the strategic use of temporary agency work

Abstract Leiharbeit hat sich im jüngsten Konjunkturzyklus zunehmend zu einem Instrument der strategischen Unternehmensführung entwickelt. Durch einen auf Dauer gestellten Einsatz von Leiharbeitskräften versucht das Management, sowohl die zukünftigen Profite gegen die Marktrisiken abzusichern als auch die gegenwärtigen Gewinne zu steigern. Im Windschatten der veränderten Nutzung der Leiharbeit wird ein konkurrenzzentrierter Modus der Regulierung der Arbeit etabliert, durch den sich auch die regulative Funktion zentraler Institutionen der Arbeitsbeziehungen wandelt: Setzten Flächentarifvertrag und Kündigungsschutz in der Vergangenheit der Konkurrenz der Arbeitenden gewisse Grenzen, werden sie aufgrund der erodierenden Verankerung in den Praktiken der Arbeitgeber immer mehr zum Gegenstand der Konkurrenz.

Panel VII: Towards a WTO Framework Agreement on Trade in Energy

The interface of trade and climate change mitigation and adaptation is at the heart of contemporary legal developments in energy law. Yet, the challenges of climate change are merely the tip of the iceberg of unresolved and controversial issues relating to the status of energy in international law. The picture is one of fragmentation with multiple instruments involved. The bulk of regulation comes under domestic law and the role of regional and global law in addressing energy and secure production and supplies has remained unclear and unsettled. Doctrines of multilayered governance have hardly been applied to the sector. The fundamental divide between goods and services does not offer an appropriate basis for addressing and regulating energy in an integrated manner in domestic and international law. Energy requires an integrated approach and does not lend itself to sectoral negotiations, depending upon different forms of energy applied to competing energy sectors. A comprehensive sectoral agreement on energy, encompassing both goods and services, would not render the current structure of the WTO Agreements obsolete. Recourse to a framework convention implies that its provisions may refer to pertinent provisions of other agreements of the WTO, in particular GATT and its instruments, GATS, TRIPS and the GPA. This is not new and has been done before, for example in defining the relationship of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and GATT, or the agreements on agriculture and on industrial subsidies. They may also incorporate provisions of agreements outside the scope of the WTO, as did the TRIPS Agreement for the Paris and Berne Conventions on industrial property and copyright. Or, they allow reference to other provisions without incorporating them, for example a future and revised UNFCCC or Kyoto Protocol. Both reference and incorporation allow the building of a comprehensive and coherent agreement on energy within the WTO. Presented at the SIEL 2010 Conference in Barcelona.

Labor–Management Relations: Understanding and Practicing Effective Negotiations

Periodic collective bargaining between employers and unions, combined with contract administration and workplace dispute resolution, has provided many core insights for the broad field of negotiations. Over the past twenty‐five years, this arena has advanced knowledge regarding the interdependence of integrative and distributive bargaining, the concurrent shaping of attitudes, the management of internal relations (within a party), and the roles of elected and appointed agents. Public sector negotiations have provided new insights into the dynamics of multilateral bargaining as well as a broad array of mediation and arbitration models. While the number of labor agreements negotiated each year has declined over the past half century, at least 23,000 private sector agreements are still executed each year and fundamental changes in industrial relations systems make continued attention to labor–management negotiations of increasing importance. In particular, this arena now features highly structured approaches applying interest‐based bargaining principles and presents profound challenges as power relations shift in multiple ways.

Partnership agreement adoption and survival in the British private and public sectors

This article assesses the adoption and survival of labour-management partnership agreements in Britain. In contrast to predictions that British employers will avoid partnership agreements, significantly more agreements have been signed than expected with 248 partnership agreements signed between 1990 and 2007. Partnership agreements covered almost ten percent of all British employees in 2007 and one-third of public sector employees. The majority of agreements are now in the public sector as part of government plans to reform the delivery of public services and in the devolved health services of Scotland and Wales as part of the potentially distinctive social democratic approach adopted by the devolved Governments. In contrast to predictions that, once signed, partnership agreements are unlikely to survive, four-fifths (80 percent) of all agreements survived to the close of 2007. Public sector agreements appear particularly robust.

Suggestions for the Road to Copenhagen

We provide a unified discussion of the issues that confront negotiators of the next international climate agreement. We offer a novel proposal that entitles countries to discharge their treaty obligations by paying a “fine”. This escape clause provides cost insurance, simplifies the problem of enforcing compliance, and increases incentives to participate in the agreement. We explain why developed country obligations should rely on a cap and trade commitment rather than carbon taxes. A Central Bank maintains stability of carbon prices by defending a price ceiling and floor. An so-called intensity target is not a good alternative to an emissions cap. Modest trade restrictions, consistent with WTO law, will form an important part of the next agreement. Developed and developing countries have differentiated responsibilities. Developing countries do not adopt binding targets at the next round of negotiations, but they accept the principle of binding targets in the subsequent agreement, beginning in the early 2020s. Developed country participation relies on a reformed CDM and sectoral agreements that are financed by the sale of emissions permits.

An International Trade Law Perspective on Sectoral Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation Approaches

International sectoral emission reduction agreements are increasingly seen as a tool of international climate policy. This paper explores the conditions stemming from WTO law for the possible design of such an international sectoral agreement on greenhouse gas mitigation by industries. After discussing the advantages of a sectoral approach and possible models, it examines trade-related mechanisms that may be used in such an agreement to create incentives for participation by third States, to promote the production of low-carbon goods or services, or to protect the competitive position of the regulated industries in participating States. It finds that while these mechanisms may affect trade in a manner covered by WTO law, there are sufficient possibilities to ensure that such mechanisms are formulated in such a way as to be WTO-compliant. In particular, while border tax adjustments to offset carbon taxes on products and product inputs are permissible under the GATT, it is not clear if this is so for indirect taxes on an input used in the production process that is no longer physically present in the final product. Such a measure may possibly violate the GATT rules on ‘other duties and charges’ on imports. In addition, possible violations of the national treatment and most-favoured nation treatment obligations of WTO law may arise if tax or regulatory distinctions between ‘like’ products are made on the basis of the carbon intensity of the production process. Further market access restrictions on imports from non-participating States may violate the GATT prohibition on quantitative restrictions. However, these violations may be justified under the exceptions in the GATT for environmental policy or health protection measures, if the measures involved are designed in a manner that takes account of the requirements of these exceptions. To the extent that the trade-related measures at issue are specifically provided for in an international sectoral agreement on greenhouse gas mitigation, they are more likely to survive a WTO challenge. Finally, the specific issue of establishing more lenient emissions targets for developing country industries in the covered sector does not in itself lead to issues under WTO law, while more favourable trade treatment given to developing country imports as compared to imports of ‘like’ products from another WTO Member (e.g. a non-participating State) would be caught by the non-discrimination rule of Most Favoured Nation treatment. An exception applies in respect of technical regulations or standards (e.g. climate-friendly labelling rules), as the TBT Agreement expressly provides for differential and more favourable treatment to developing country Members, including in the preparation and application of technical regulations and standards, to avoid creating unnecessary obstacles to exports from developing countries.

The Institutional Context of an 'Empirical Law': The Wage Curve Under Different Regimes of Collective Bargaining

The wage curve identified by Blanchflower and Oswald (1994) postulates that the wage level is a decreasing function of the regional unemployment rate. In testing this hypothesis, most empirical studies have not taken into account that differences in the institutional framework may have an impact on the existence (or the slope) of a wage curve. Using a large-scale linked employer-employee data set for western Germany, this paper provides a first test of the relevance of different bargaining regimes and of works councils for the existence of a wage curve. In pooled regressions for the period 1998 to 2006 as well as in worker-level or plant-level fixed-effects estimations we obtain evidence for a wage curve for plants with a collective bargaining agreement at firm level. The point estimates for this group of plants are close to the -0.1 elasticity of wages with respect to unemployment postulated by Blanchflower and Oswald. In this regime, we also find that works councils dampen the adjustment of wages to the regional unemployment situation. In the other regimes of plants that either do not make use of collective contracts or apply sectoral agreements, we do not find a wage curve.

Climate change policy and international trade: Policy considerations in the US

Significant recent attention, in both research and policy realms, has been given to the intersection of international trade and global climate change. Trade presents challenges to climate policy through carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns, but also potential solutions through the use of cooperative trade agreements, technology transfer, or carbon tariffs against recalcitrant nations. This study examines how trade may affect climate policy in the US and specifically examines the use of carbon tariffs as suggested by recent bills before the US Congress. We argue that even if such actions are legal at the World Trade Organization, they are probably not necessary to protect industrial competitiveness in the traditional sense, could cover only a small proportion of total embodied emissions in trade, and may in fact be counterproductive at a moment when global cooperation is desperately needed. While political agreement may necessitate at least the threat of carbon tariffs, cooperative agreements such as global sectoral agreements, technology sharing, etc. could be more productive in the short term.

The Anatomy of Two-tier Bargaining Models

Collective bargaining in most European countries takes the form of multi-employer collective agreements. In the three Scandinavian countries, a two-tier model of bargaining has developed in many sectors: sectoral agreements prescribe national standards and nationally agreed wage increases, but they also give procedural and economic guidelines or frameworks for local or firm-level pay arrangement. Dispute resolution procedures at local level are the crucial link between levels, and a variety of such procedures are discussed. Similar examples of two-tier models can be found in other European countries, but they seem to be more fully developed in the Scandinavian countries. Possible explanations are considered, together with a discussion of the different forms of variation in wages opened up by two-tier models.

Elements for a Robust Climate Regime Post‐2012: Options for Mitigation

This article addresses the current state of negotiations within the international climate change regime (including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol) and options to be included in a post‐2012 carbon market framework, such as sectoral agreements, soft targets for developing countries and a larger consideration of sinks. The article reviews the different options focusing on their potential to spur mitigation of greenhouse gases in key areas such as energy production. The size and depth of the carbon market, as well as the stringency of the cap and the stabilization path chosen, are variables affecting the effectiveness of different options. The article thus makes a clear case for all large emitters to agree on a long‐term stabilization goal to guide further negotiations on medium‐term carbon market frameworks, and notes that options related to the consideration of sinks, for example, should maintain proportionality with the size of the carbon market to ensure that a sufficient ‘pull’ for technological developments in energy‐related activities is maintained.

International Sectoral Agreements in a Post-2012 Climate Framework

This Pew Center on Global Climate Change Working Paper examines international sectoral agreements as one element of post-2012 climate change framework. It is part of a Pew Center series expanding on key recommendations of the Pew Center's Climate Change Dialogue at Pocantico. The paper explores different types of international sectoral approaches, the potential benefits of sectoral agreements, factors that make a sector more or less well suited for a sectoral agreement, and key design variables that must be addressed in developing international sectoral agreements.

Sectoral collective agreements: remuneration straitjackets for German workplaces?

PurposeThis paper aims to map some of the diversity in employee relations in Germany that is overlooked, first, within assessments of the German labour market that focus on the national level and second, within separate studies in this area that emphasize attempts by employers to circumvent important institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe research adopts a quantitative approach to examine data for German manufacturing and service sectors on both the spread of industry‐wide collective agreements and the extent to which workers are paid wage rates that are higher than those set out in those agreements. It also assesses the prevalence of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes.FindingsIndustry‐wide collective agreements are not the burden that they are often portrayed. Actual wage rates and the prevalence of profit sharing and ESOSs make German workplaces more heterogeneous than critics and advocates of the German economic model posit.Research limitations/implicationsThe data are limited to Germany; however, Germany occupies a prominent position, not just within much of the employment relations literature, but also in terms of economic output. The research is also limited by an inability to provide evidence on workplaces that undercut sectoral collective agreements and to disaggregate the data further by sector and firm size/location.Originality/valueThe paper provides a counterpoint to the portrayals of employee relations in Germany that often present a homogeneous picture of those relations. For the first time, data on the spread of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes in German workplaces at the sectoral level are provided.

Integration and communication as central issues in Dutch negotiated agreements on industrial energy efficiency

AbstractThis paper analyses specific aspects of the implementation of the second multi‐annual agreement for energy efficiency concluded in the Netherlands with various industrial sectors for the period 2002–2010. The agreement is a follow‐up on a previous negotiated agreement that was generally seen as successful. This successor aims at stretching the limits of feasible and reasonably cost‐effective improvements in energy efficiency. In order to achieve this, so‐called ‘expansion themes’ were included that typically urge communication and tuning between companies as they exceed the level of individual companies: sustainable products, sustainable industrial estates, sustainable transport and logistics and sustainable energy. While the potential benefits are very promising, the first years of implementation mostly taught lessons on the difficulties that have to be overcome in order to achieve these. This paper will discuss the emerging obstacles and positive experiences with the implementation of the expansion theme measures. Special attention will be given to the role of the ‘consultation groups’, which supervise the implementation of the sector agreements and consist of representatives of the relevant industry sector organization, government and an advisory agency. This follow‐up consultation after the agreement is concluded to play an important role in stimulating integration issues such as the coherence of the energy efficiency measures in the sector, the tuning with other environmental and energy policies of government and the mutual trust between the partners.The paper is based on the official evaluation of this negotiated agreement by the authors, which was commissioned by the Dutch ministry for economic affairs. The results are not only informative on this particular negotiated agreement, but also provide lessons on the integration and communication aspects of this policy strategy in general. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.