The Europeanization of flexicurity: the Lisbon Strategy's impact on employment policies in Italy and Poland

Abstract

The Lisbon Strategy promoted flexicurity as a means to achieve full employment and modernize national labour markets in the European Union. Flexicurity, which combines flexible labour markets and secure employment, became a leitmotif not only for the European Employment Strategy and the Lisbon Strategy but also for national employment policies. However, this contribution shows that there were mixed results in terms of policy adoption in Italy and Poland – two countries with similar structural employment problems. Looking at the policy content of flexicurity in terms of its goals and instruments, the contribution's findings demonstrate that policy change is dependent on the political parties in power supporting the EU while policy inertia is expected when the parties are characterized by hard Euroscepticism.

Keywords:

• Employment policy
• flexicurity
• Italy
• Lisbon Strategy
• parties in government
• Poland

Notes

Concertation derives from Italian concertazione which means a type of collective bargaining. The beginnings of concertation may be traced back to Ciampi's social pact of July 1993 which produced a framework for collective bargaining (Regini and Regalia 1997).

Interview with a representative of the trade unions, August 2009.

Interview with the Chairman of the Labour Commission in the Senate, December 2007.

Active and activating labour market policies were previously delegated to regions as a result of the 2001 devolution reform (Preunkert and Zirra 2009).

Interview with an Associate Professor in Economics, University of Roma Tre, March 2010.

Interview with an Associate Professor in Economics, University of Roma Tre, March 2010.

In his 2008 book, Szczerbiak prefers to use ‘Eurorealist’ instead of ‘Eurosceptic, and consequently classifies PiS, SO and PSL as Eurorealist. However, I prefer to use the original classification.

Journal of Laws 2004, No 99, Item 1001.

Law of 15 June 2007 on amendments to the social insurance system and other laws, Journal of Laws, No 115, item 792.

Interview with a co-ordinator of the project ‘Flexicurity in Poland’, Labour Market Department, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, March 2010.

The Act of 19 December 2008 on amendments to the Act on Promotion of Employment and Labour Market Institutions, Journal of Laws 2009, No.9, item 33.

The Act on Capital Pensions of January 8, 2009 and the Act on Bridging Pensions, 19 December 2008 (Journal of Laws 237, item 1656).

Interview with an Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, March 2010.

Interview with an Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, March 2010.