1 / 14

THE FLEXICURITY DEBATE AT THE EU LEVEL: AN EXAMPLE OF DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY?

THE FLEXICURITY DEBATE AT THE EU LEVEL: AN EXAMPLE OF DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY?. The ASPEN and the ETUI Conference: Activation and Security HASAN FARUK USLU MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ANKARA/TURKEY. Two Quotations.

herman
Download Presentation

THE FLEXICURITY DEBATE AT THE EU LEVEL: AN EXAMPLE OF DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. THE FLEXICURITY DEBATE AT THE EU LEVEL: AN EXAMPLE OF DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY? The ASPEN and the ETUI Conference: Activation and Security HASAN FARUK USLU MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ANKARA/TURKEY

  2. Two Quotations • “It was a deliberate choice not to speak about job and income security in the Guideline 21” (Wilthagen) • “Yet, I am not negative about flexicurity. I just want to recapture the debate from those who want to concentrate on reducing employment protection and unemployment benefit entitlements...(John Monks)

  3. Introduction • The consensus on the ambiguous character of the concept and the attractiveness in this ambiguity • Is it an ordinary ambiguity or not? • My humble view : Deliberate ambiguity

  4. Questions to be addressed • What have been the European level contributions to the ambiguity of the concept? • Which mechanisms have been used? • What purposes it has served for? • These questions will necessitate a clear analysis on the role the Commission has been playing due to its specific characters

  5. Flexicurity • The main message of the concept has been at the EU level for the last two decades, at least in discursive terms. • Starting from early 2006, we are witnessing the explicit use of the term • “It remains to be told” • In my view, the timing of popularising the concept is not accidental.

  6. Flexicurity: The Definitions debate • The so-called Dutch and Danish models (overrated or reductionist according to some people) • Certain differences between these examples • But, the Commission in its 2006 Employment in Europe Report has grouped Denmark and the Netherlands in the same family of flexicurity in Europe (methodologically and empirically flawed)

  7. The EU level debate • Whether there is a consensus on the concept or it is open to diverse interpretations • The ambiguity and the attractiveness of this ambiguity is not devoid of political significance in itself. • The role the Commission has been playing in this ambiguity • So, it is not an ordinary ambiguity

  8. The EU level debate • The Constitutional failure in France and in the Netherlands in where social considerations of Europeans played an important role • The incorporation of the Employment Guidelines into the Broad Economic Guidelines which should be considered as relegating the social to a secondary position in times of crisis at the mid-term revision of the Lisbon Strategy in 2005 • Those have led the Commission to “show a social face” (in discourse) to the Europeans in order to deal with the legitimacy crisis of the integration process • Flexicurity was a nice option.

  9. The EU level debate: The Commission • Employment in Europe Report 2006 • The Green Paper 2006 • Special Eurobarometer Report / October 2006 • The Commission Communication of 2007 • “The Committee regime of EU policy-making”: experts groups; replacing political legitimacy by functional legitimacy; de-politicization of policy-making

  10. The EU level debate: The Commission • The need for a “political communication” • Its political discourse is supported by “scientific” (!) research • BUT, “The Polysemic Discourse” which could play into the hands of many different positions: not pushing other actors out of the debate (thanks, to a certain extent, to DG Employment)

  11. The EU level debate: Parliament, Council, BusinessEurope, ETUC • No consensus but nobody is negative • The Joint Analysis of the key challenges facing European labour markets • The Mission for Flexicurity • ETUC : not negative but wants to recapyure the debate (?)

  12. Flexicurity: A Deliberate Ambiguity? • The lack of a general framework and a theory of the concept • The ambiguity steming from the EES guidelines • The role the Commission has been playing: absorbing all the main actors into the debate and letting them jump to the bandwagon through giving the image that they can also shape and recapture the debate • This is an example of “deliberate ambiguity”

  13. Conclusions • “The song is again that song, The string in the musical instruments has changed” (a famous Turkish poem) • The song: reconciliation between labour and capital; between economic and social policies; between flexibility and security • Changing string in the musical instruments: the concept of flexicurity replacing older concepts such as the EES, TLMsand the activation • Thus,no discursive and paradigmatic change; but the discursive tool has changed.

  14. Conclusions: The future of the concept • “The pyrrhic victory for flexicurity” • It seems that it will not escape from the decreasing popularity of previous buzzwords if it is not strengthened with an understanding of security which is not narrowed down to employability, its relation with macroeconomic policies, a clear gender dimension...

More Related