A Policy Perspective on European Unemployment

This paper focuses on three major themes in the policy debate on European unemployment. A first issue concerns the causes of unemployment. We point to the diversity of the unemployment performance in Europe and plead for a policy approach which takes into account the interdependence between employment, labour costs and social protection. As a second major theme, we evaluate existing EU policies. While a EU social dimension is gradually developing, the European level is far from providing a comprehensive policy framework at this stage. A third issue relates to the national policy dimension and is linked to Europe’s quest for a third way. We compare the corporatist and competitive labour market approach.