Labour law reforms in Europe: adjusting employment protection legislation for the worse?

This new working paper is intended to map reforms of employment protection law in the member states with the aim of addressing these legal changes in the context of the crisis, but also in the context of the deregulation agenda of the European Commission.

The report critically addresses the large-scale deregulation of employment protection law in the EU member states, which basically started under the umbrella of flexicurity, in particular the EU’s so-called ‘better regulation agenda’, its follow-up ‘smart regulation agenda’ and, finally, the Commission’s annual country-specific recommendations and the memoranda of understanding with programme countries within the framework of so-called anti-crisis measures. The report shows that the EU Commission’s deregulation doctrine not only contradicts primary and secondary European hard law on employment protection, but it also helped to exacerbate precariousness in the workplace and, in combination with other reforms, the pauperisation of workers, thus violating the fundamental rights of workers, as laid down in the Treaty.