Many European countries are often stereotyped as being prone to going on strike, and recent data would appear to back that up.
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In the first quarter of 2026, Portugal (234), Italy (190), Spain (108), and France (105) reported the highest number of strikes among seven EU countries. That’s according to figures analysed by AI data collector Strike Tracker, the Portuguese Directorate-General for Employment and Industrial Relations (DGERT), and the Italian institutional guarantor of the balance between the right to strike and user rights, CGSSE.
These industrial actions mainly targeted the transport, education, healthcare, and public administration sectors, but they’re not the only issues prompting widespread protest.
On 12 June, local police force personnel and services in Italy announced a nationwide strike to raise awareness for better working conditions. This was after several officers were hospitalised following assaults while on duty, according to the union’s provincial representatives.
Last week, Portugal registered its second nationwide strike in the past six months to protest against a new labour package announced by the centre-right government.
On the other hand, the Netherlands has seen only around seven strikes in the first three months of 2026, making it the country in the group with the fewest so far.
Traditionally, workers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria do not often engage in industrial action compared to other EU countries.
Nevertheless, preliminary data suggests 2025 will be a record strike year across the EU since 1991, according to the European Trade Union Institute.
Between 2020 and 2024, Finland, Belgium and France were the EU countries where people went on strike the most.
While data on industrial action is scarce and fragmented, as of 2024, the most common reason for the bigger strikes was wages, specifically wages failing to meet the higher cost of living due to inflation.
Narrowed space for trade unions
The share of workers who are union members has halved since 1985, falling from 30% to 15% between 2023 and 2024, except for Belgium, which has bucked the trend, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
On average across 28 OECD countries, 14.3% of women in employment were unionised in 2024, while for men the share was 15%.
Unionisation was much stronger in the public sector, with 41.3% of employees unionised in 2024 compared to 10.1% in the private sector.
The share of employees covered by collective agreements also declined significantly over the past 30 years, especially in Central and Eastern European countries.
