For proposals in the area of social policy the Commission is obliged to consult with the Social Partners. These are the representatives of employees (ETUC, the European Trade Union Confederation), of employers (UNICE, the Union of Industries of the European Community, and UEAPME, the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises) and of the public sector (CEEP, the European Centre for Public Enterprise)
The social partners are the trade unions and the employers (or their representative organisations) engaged in social dialogue. The idea of social partnership is strongly founded in many European models of industrial relations and is now adopted across the European Union. At the European interprofessional level, the social partners are the ETUC, UNICE, CEEP and UEAPME.