Functionalism vs Westphalia: the looking glass of employment policy

George Ross
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George Ross: Morris Hillquit Professor in Labor and Social Policy, Brandeis University (USA) Ad personam Chaire Jean Monnet, Université de Montréal (Canada)

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2009, vol. 15, issue 1, 93-110

Abstract: Many key ideas in the Lisbon strategy can be traced back to the Delors Commission's 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, arguably the EU's first major effort to confront the economic and social realities of globalisation. At the time the White Paper failed to achieve the results it sought. However, the core of the White Paper's labour market issues were taken up by the Amsterdam Treaty which initiated the European Employment Strategy and its innovative methodology, the open method of coordination (OMC). The Lisbon strategy, which followed soon thereafter, broadened this approach into a new mission to enhance the competitiveness of the EU which used the OMC extensively. However, EU Member States, zealous of their prerogatives in economic, labour market and social policies, were unwilling to grant the EU level significant roles for transnational coordination and implementation in these areas. The results have not matched the outpouring of support for Lisbon from progressive intellectuals and centre-left politicians. In the critical policy areas that the 1993 White Paper, the EES and the Lisbon strategy have addressed, contradictions between intergovernmentalism and the need for European coordination have led to suboptimal results.

Keywords: EU and globalisation; Jacques Delors; European Commission; European Employment Strategy; Lisbon strategy; intergovernmentalism vs. functionalism; limits of Europeanisation; OMC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:15:y:2009:i:1:p:93-110

DOI: 10.1177/102425890901500108

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