ABSTRACT
The Barcelona European Council emphasized three areas to promote economic recovery: the Lisbon strategy for full employment, the deregulation of the public sector and the improvement of education and training. The section of the Pact on welfare to work brought in the new idea of active protection which translated into measures to ensure increased monitoring of unemployment benefit recipients and compulsory training programmes. The Pact includes mechanisms for circumventing the Worker's Statute which ensured legally the reinstatement of workers dismissed unfairly. The ETUC offered a more moderate criticism of the lack of progress towards a social Europe while the militant unions outside of its fold, as well as its internal critics, related more to the radical criticisms developed through the global justice movement (GJM). The ETUC reasserted its belief in the existence of a European Social Model in the lead up to the Social Affairs Summit.
