ABSTRACT
The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) is an attempt to reach common European goals, without uniform, legally binding rules or targets, through crossnational benchmarking and exchange of experiences, especially in the field of social and employment policies. It is based on a cyclical process of developing common objectives and indicators; national reform programmes, action plans, or strategy reports in which EU Member States explain how they will reach these objectives; peer reviews; annual progress reports evaluating national performance; and in some processes recommendations. OMC processes are generally treaty based (Heidenreich and Bischoff 2008: 509-10): the European Employment Strategy (EES) even in a separate title (articles 125-30 Treaty establishing the European Community). In the first years of its existence, the OMC was either hailed enthusiastically for its possibilities of mutual learning or criticized for its soft, neo-voluntarist approach. On the basis of more concrete empirical evidence, the limitations and possibilities of the OMC became clearer: it is neither the silver bullet for achieving a social Europe nor just a new label for day-to-day exchanges between high-ranking national labour market officials. At a European level, it is a highly professionalized, bureaucratic process with a limited involvement of social partner organizations and NGO networks, in which common goals for national employment and social policies are formulated. In the long run, this may result in more binding European regulations, but there is no concrete evidence of this up to now. But the essential question remains whether and how these European coor-
dination processes can effectively influence ongoing national reforms. At a general level, this question has been discussed in the debates on policy diffusion, policy transfer, convergence, and compliance. Knill and Lenschow (2005), for example, distinguish three different patterns of adaptation to EU policy (compliance, competition, and communication). Holzinger and Knill (2005) differentiate the third category – to which the OMC belongs – into lesson drawing, transnational problem solving, policy emulation and international policy promotion, which refer to different dimensions of learning processes within the OMC.
