Presents an in-depth empirical study of the effects of 'voluntaristic' and (partly) 'soft' EU policies in all 15 member states.

Preface; 1. Introduction: flexible EU governance in domestic practice; 2. Theorising the domestic impact of EU law: the state of the art and beyond; 3. EU social policy over time: the role of Directive; 4. The Employment Contract Information Directive: a small but useful social complement to the internal market; 5. The Pregnant Workers Directive: European social policy between protection and employability; 6. The Working Time Directive: European standards taken hostage by domestic politics; 7. The Young Workers Directive: a safety net with holes; 8. The Parental Leave Directive: compulsory policy innovation and voluntary over-implementation; 9. The Part-time Work Directive: a facilitator of national reforms; 10. Voluntary reforms triggered by the Directives; 11. The EU Commission and (non-)compliance in the Member States; 12. Beyond policy change: convergence of national public-private relations?; 13. Implementation across countries and Directive; 14. Why do Member States fail to comply? Testing the hypotheses suggested in the literature; 15. Making sense of compliance patterns: a typology; 16. Conclusions: myth and reality of 'social Europe'; References.