The flexicurity model for labour market reform provided a way of bridging opposing views of labour market reform, according to some scholars. However, as I argue in a forthcoming paper, the flexicurity model for labour market reform failed to gain acceptance and, far from building confidence, ultimately eroded trust between social partners. Other scholars (e.g. Keune, Mailand) agree that the emphasis on flexibility rather than security fatally undermined the model. Thus, the way the model was implemented and its translation into specific national pathways made it unworkable, rather than the economic conditions (i.e. austerity) under which it was meant to be implemented.
The shift to the right in electoral outcomes across member states has also highlighted the political constraints under which progressive labour market policies can be formulated, presented and put into practice.
At the same time, the external imposition of austerity through European monetary policies will narrow the range of labour market policy options for those countries affected (Greece, Italy and Ireland notably, and no doubt Spain).
This makes for a different, and rather paradoxical, set of political constraints around labour market reform than those prevailing in the recession of the early 1990s.
In the first part of the paper, I review the lessons of the EU’s “flexicurity moment” from 2007 to 2011. In the second part of the paper, I sketch likely scenarios for the future development of labour market policy at EU level and in a selection of member states identified as representing different flexicurity pathways.
