ABSTRACT

Flexicurity has been on the agenda of the European Employment Strategy (EES) for some time now. This chapter assesses the extent to which a substantive influence is attributable to soft law mechanisms in one specific area namely, the marriage of flexicurity and a distinctive social model. The EES is of course part of the European Social Model (ESM) one among many open methods of coordination (OMCs) that are deemed capable of helping to build this ESM. The low regard in which flexicurity was held was emphasized when it was once equated by the current Prime Minister and former Chancellor, Gordon Brown, with the childcare provision in the Nordic countries. The chances of EES-promoted flexicurity policies are even more limited after the politicization of the debate as a result of the negative votes on the constitutional treaty in France and The Netherlands in 2005. OMCs display a structural weakness in stimulating substantive changes in institutional flexicurity arrangements.