ABSTRACT
The 'Open Method of Coordination' and, more particularly, the European Employment Strategy (EES) is a deliberate attempt to deal with diversity in national social and economic policy traditions at European level in the form of a qualitatively new system of governance. Despite the increased importance of transnational scales of intervention and regulation, the European Union continues to display a great variety of industrial relations, systems of socio-economic regulation as well as welfare and employment traditions. Just as Western Europe displays different welfare and employment traditions Eastern Europe should not be seen as a homogeneous block. For a long period of time, EU Member States regarded the launching of a joint European employment policy as conflicting with national traditions of labour market regulation, and it was also seen as an obstacle to the achievement of competitiveness via market liberalization. For the first time, domestic employment regimes were thereby opened up to new goals, practices and strategies designed at European level.
