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Abstract:
This paper examines the European Employment Strategy (EES) as an example of Multi-level governance. It argues that the EES came about for several reasons, namely: (a) the previous stagnation of a European social policy; (b) as a strategy that can deal with the diversity of national labour market regulations and the diverse standards of social welfare and redistribution existing in Member States; (c) the implementation of EMU. The paper examines first the social policy background at the European level and second the way the Open Method of Co-ordination was engineered and has been applied to the Employment policy. It puts emphasis on the actors involved and the policy process that has developed as a result. Thirdly, it takes into account the national variations of labour market conditions and social dialogue practices as well as the variability of involvement of sub-national actors for each Member State we have investigated. The research result challenges those views which are sceptical about the increasing opportunity structures for influencing policy at sub-national levels1 and also those views which see European integration as a process that is eroding national decision-making power. The EES constitutes a good example of the complexity of current governance practices within the EU. In fact, national institutional distinctiveness provides considerable room for policy formulation and implementation in which there is an arena for different participation models.
This paper is the outcome of a EU sponsored project ‘A European Public Space Observatory: Assembling Information that allows the Monitoring of European Democracy’ (EUROPUB)
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