HOW RESILIENT IS THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL MODEL? FLEXIBILITY OR/AND SECURITY?

Abstract

Our paper aims to assess the resilience of the European social model (ESM) against recent challenges. Resilience depends on effectively managing the contradictions of the ESM. Flexicurity is an example of managing contradictions between security and flexibility. The contribution of flexicurity to the resilience of the ESM is determined by the development of the abilities necessary for resilience. Our research evaluates the performance of these abilities using statistical and document analyses. The results show that flexicurity policies perform satisfactorily relative to their resilience abilities. Still, the ability to respond is less effective due to significant differences among the Member States (regarding the implementation of flexicurity policies) and to insufficient openness and functionality of the European labour market. Nevertheless, the European flexicurity policies redefine the ESM by adding a touch of a more mobile, autonomous and free-spirited approach, thus representing a solution to both preserve valuable tradition and modernise the ESM.

Keywords

• European social model
• employment
• flexicurity
• resilience