The European Social Model and the Law and Policy of Transitional Labour Markets in the European Union

Abstract

The concept of transitional labour markets (TLM) has not only been prominent and provided core ideas for recent labour market reforms in a number of advanced Member States of the EU but also in employment policy discussions in the European Union. Yet the fact that it played an important role in the design of the European Employment Strategy (EES) in the mid-1990s, influenced the evaluation of the EES by the Kok Commissions, helped to revise the EES as part of the Lisbon agenda, and to streamline employment and economic policies is rarely acknowledged in public and academic discussions and deserves to be assessed adequately. In the following it will be argued that the underlying assumptions of the TLM concept lie at the heart of the EES as well as the European Social Model (ESM). In particular, if the EES and the ESM are assessed in functional terms, it becomes clear that ideas such as balancing organisational and individual interests, life-course policies, and a special focus on transitional phases in employment careers are core concerns of the TLM approach as well as of the debates over the EES and an ESM.