The paper deals with the theoretical issues of the institute of participation of employees in labour cooperatives, including the participation of workers' in the European Cooperative Society, as a form of European transnational business cooperation. The legal normative and the axiological method with special focus on the Regulation on the Statute of the European Cooperative Society and Directive 2002/72 on employee participation has been applied. Employee participation in its full scope was achieved in cooperatives business under the classical theory of democratic participation. The standards of participation in transnational European cooperatives corresponds to the principles applied in classical forms of economic entities that predominantly operate to satisfy economic interests. The labour policy and law need to follow the legal concept presented in a normative theory of new social contract, where a cooperative is subject to the general cooperative law only to the extent that it is compatible with their particular nature.