[FR] The EU and employment: review and prospects

Although employment issues are central to Europeans’ concerns, they have played a relatively minor role in the European integration process, from the Treaty of Rome to the 1980s. Following initial discussions in the 1990s, the foundations for EU intervention in the coordination of national employment policies were laid in 1997 at the Luxembourg Summit, which created the European Employment Strategy, subsequently incorporated into the Lisbon Strategy in 2000.

Today, the EU has various tools at its disposal to intervene in the structuring of the labour market and employment policies: Community law through directives and the case law of the CJEU, exchange of information and mutual learning within the framework of the Open Method of Coordination of Employment Policies, and finally financing tools to support certain interventions by Member States. The debate on their effectiveness and relevance is important, but often difficult to settle due to the difficulties involved in evaluation. However, it has been shown that the EES has an impact on the practices of stakeholders, influencing the reforms carried out in Member States.

The completion of the Lisbon Strategy in 2010 and the preparation of the Europe 2020 strategy provide an opportunity to re-discuss the EU’s objectives and policy instruments in the field of employment: the policy paper puts forward some ideas for reforming the employment guidelines, in particular in favour of higher quality employment, and proposes to relaunch the construction of new rights for European workers.