ABSTRACT
Unlike the other policies analysed in this book, employment policy was not at the heart of the early policy goals of the European Community. As Falkner very effectively summarized: in the 1960s ‘the dominant philosophy was that welfare would be provided by the economic growth stemming from the economics of a liberalised market and not from the regulatory and distributive capacity of public policy’ (1999: 84). Employment concerns increased over the years as a result of the ‘permanent austerity’ (Pierson 2001) faced by European economies since the mid-1970s and became central in EU decision making during the late 1990s. In the following subsections we will provide a summarized description of the main features of the evolution of European employment policy.
