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6.1.2 British and German Employment Policies under the EES: Proximity and
Rapprochement to its ‘Policy ID’ – Converging Trends, Remaining Differences
In the light of the second guiding thesis the present sub-chapter draws conclusions
on the Europeanisation impact of the EES on the adaptation of British and German
socio-economic and employment policies highlighting converging trends and remaining differences. The second guiding thesis assumed that
Even though legally non-binding the EES –by means of policy learning and
exchange of best practices–has an, albeit varying, impact on domestic
employment policies in the UK and Germany.
As part of supranational socio-economic governance, it primarily fosters
?-convergence by means of policy transfer and diffusion, leading towards
Europeanisation of national employment policies.
The empirical analysis undertaken to test the assumptions of the second guiding
thesis provides evidence for the fact that the soft elements of the EES stimulated
learning processes and the evolution of common understandings as well as ideas
related to employment policy reforms. As a result of this development, British and
German employment policies approached not only the overall ‘policy ID’ of the
EES, that is, developed ?-convergence to the supranational provision (cf. chapter
2.1.2.3.1). They also became more similar to each other in terms of domestic employment policy instruments and problem-solving approaches. So, ?-convergence
(increasing policy similarity) can be acknowledged, too. With this trend, in a horizontal cross-national perspective, British and German employment policies consolidated and increased proximity. In parallel, in the German case a certain destabilisation of past traditions and understandings was witnessed. With the ‘Hartz’ commission, also new ways of domestic employment policy deliberation, decentralised
experimentation and the collective definition of employment policy approaches
came to the fore.
As assumed by the second guiding thesis, different degrees of Europeanisation
were found in the UK and Germany given that employment policy misfit in the case
of the UK–disposing over a greater ex-ante proximity to the EES’s policy paradigm
(cf. chapter 3.2.2, 3.2.3.2.2 and 3.2.3.4) at t0, i.e. the year of the inception of the
EES–was indeed weaker than in the case of Germany. Based on these more problematic starting conditions, the EES had a stronger impact on German employment
policies as Germany–caused by a substantive policy misfit rooting in diverse domestic welfare state and policy traditions (cf. chapter 2.2.2.2)–needed to adapt its domestic employment policy approach more fundamentally to comply with the overall
ideas of supranational employment policy co-ordination. The constraints of EMU
membership added to the adaptation pressure (cf. chapter 3.3). So, as assumed by the
second guiding thesis, adaptation to the EES was more cumbersome and time-
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430
consuming in Germany than in the UK. Yet, by and large, the two countries reacted
quite similar to the stimulus of the EES, even if different results in terms of Europeanisation impact were found.
Table 47: Indicators for Europeanisation of National Employment Policies in the
UK and Germany
UK
D
Consideration of the EES priority areas +++/++++ +++/++++
Focus on EES target groups ++++ +++/++++
National policy change instigated by European recommendations
+/++ +++
Emulation, synthesis or influence inspired by
the EES
Influence Synthesis with a
slight tendency
to emulation
?-convergence (similarity towards a common
model)
+++/++++ +++/++++
-convergence (alteration of policy-related
country-ranking)
++/+++
-convergence (worst performers pull alongside best performers)
Missing
(as UK belongs
to the best
performers)
Missing / -
(due to poor
economic and
employment
performance of
Germany)
?-convergence (increasing policy similarity) +++/++++
(due to rapprochement of Germany
to the EES and proximity of the UK
approach to the EES)
Change of underlying cognitive / normative
structures
++/+++
(due to overlapping national
priorities)
+++/++++
(due to huge
reforms in
2002/03)
weak = -; medium weak = +; medium = ++; medium strong = +++; strong = ++++
Source: Own compilation based on chapter 5.1 and 5.2
With a view to the consideration of the EES’s priority areas, both countries’ employment policies embraced the former four pillars of the EES and the later three
overarching aims of the revised EES in a medium strong to increasingly strong way.
While the UK already from 1997/98 to 2000, and, hence, partially before as well as
parallel to the EES, implemented the most important policy reforms with the NDs
and the Welfare-to-Work package, German reform activities were lagging behind
during the ‘stand-alone’ period of the EES. They were only boosted in 2002/03
through the three huge reforms ‘Job-AQTIV Act’, ‘Hartz’ concept and the ‘Agenda
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431
2010’, showing greater signs of ?-convergence, but also of ?-convergence in the
second phase of the EES. This boost of reforms was, yet, not primarily instigated by
the revision of the EES, even if it outlined the main direction of reforms that were
also taken up by German policy-makers. It paid tribute to national developments,
such as problems revealed by the German Court of Auditors in view of the FES’s
placement practice (cf. chapter 5.2.1.5). Nevertheless, also before this decisive domestic turning point, German employment policy reforms rather positively matched
with the priority areas of the EES (cf. 5.2.3).
Due to these developments, the basic lines of domestic employment policy reform
agendas became more consistent with the EES in both countries, pointing also at the
EES’s potential to instigate ?-convergence. At the same time, national differences,
nevertheless, continued to exist, such as problems related to the German early retirement scheme, high non-wage labour costs and problem to increase female participation or British imbalances regarding ‘flexicurity’, low basic skills levels, the
‘working-poor’ phenomenon or the stronger focus on de-regulation and flexibility of
work organisation (cf. chapter 5.1.3 and 5.2.3). This remaining diversity owes to the
differences in labour market and employment policy traditions as well as to the
different degrees of involvement of subnational levels of government and political
actors such as the social partners.
The convergence of agendas, while vertically supported by the EES, was also influenced by the same set of problems both countries faced and the fact that both
countries, during the period under analysis, were led by social democratic (coalition)
governments emphasising the New Labour and Neue Mitte approach (cf. chapter
2.2.2.1 and 2.2.2.2). Political actors involved in the domestic part of the EES-PCN,
therefore, concluded that the EES was supportive to approaches and reform proposals that were subject to reflection in the national arena (cf. chapter 5.1.3 and 5.2.3).
However, no sea-change of domestic employment policy approaches was assessed to
have taken place by a high level of policy transfer through emulation (cf. chapter
2.1.2.3.1) as a result of the EES alone. While in Germany signs of synthesis and a
very slight touch of emulation are to be found for instance in the cases of job rotation or tax reforms, the UK largely opted for policy transfer by influence of domestic
policies through other EU member states’ examples such as Denmark (cf. chapter
5.1.3 and 5.2.3).
Regarding the focus on the EES’s target groups, Germany, like the UK, initially
concentrated on young people and long-term unemployed and increased training
programmes and the enhancement of their basic skills. As initial reforms proved to
be successful in the UK, the domestic target group focus was extended to other disadvantaged groups, such as lone parents, older people, and disabled persons. This
extension of scope was to be witnessed in Germany later than in the UK. It, yet, also
increasingly embraced other disadvantaged groups, such as women, older workers,
disabled persons, and immigrants since 2000/01. Therefore, the Europeanisation
impact of the EES in this area is assessed to have been strong in the UK and medium
strong to increasingly strong in Germany.
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In view of policy change instigated by European recommendations in both the
UK and Germany, criticism was more likely to be accepted in the short-run if it was
in line with national perceptions, policy priorities, and traditions. Recommendations
that represented deviating positions to national traditions were partially countered by
national priorities or results of the implementation of past policies. Therefore, the
Europeanisation impact of the EES on policy changes introduced as a reaction to the
Council recommendation was limited in the short-run by national preferences and
past institutional and policy paths (cf. chapter 5.1.3 and 5.2.3). Thus, the Europeanisation impact of the recommendations was medium weak to medium in the UK and
medium strong in Germany. These results provide for evidence of the recommendations not presenting a policy-reform-instigating-momentum or a powerful instrument
to inspire policy changes through vertical policy transfer (cf. chapter 2.1.2.2) in case
of conflicting national priorities. Nevertheless, the EES as well as the Council recommendations were assessed to be a useful source of inspiration for domestic policy
change and for adaptation of underlying, albeit unsuccessful, national perceptions
and ideas as well as a helpful support for national reforms in the long-run.
In view of the four types of convergence, the empirical analysis provided for evidence of the EES instigating ideational and ?-convergence, pointing at the successful
‘implementation’ of the EES’s primary intend (cf. chapter 3.4.3). Compared to this
positive result, -convergence, as a measurement scale for country rankings regarding a special policy, was medium to medium strong. This degree was the result of
increased ?-convergence and indicated at certain problems related to -convergence
of worst performers pulling alongside best performers in relation to the UK’s and
Germany’s employment performance, which was missing to weak due to the poor
economic performance of Germany, but not in view of the direction of policy adaptation. Finally, ?-convergence has to be acknowledged and was medium strong to
strong with the two countries indeed ‘gotten closer together’–indicating at a successfully transposed intend of the EES in view of the peer review exercise (cf. chapter
3.4.3).
The EES has, hence, achieved convergence insofar, as, on the basis of peer pressure and given the political impetus behind it, obligations deriving from the (multi-)
annual EES process have been taken rather seriously by both the UK and Germany
and the ‘policy ID’ of the EES shines through in domestic reforms. This compliance
was not less caused by the British and German governments feeling obliged to demonstrate their engagement to decrease unemployment before their ‘European peer’ in
order to avoid ‘naming, blaming, and shaming’ mechanisms. In this sense, the EES,
as far as the exchange of best practices and information is concerned, has led to
Europeanisation. It, moreover, caused the British and German government to invest
more than before in policy learning from other EU member states. The EES, thus,
stimulated the broadening of perspective across national and policy boarders given
that exchange provided for evidence of the vast commonality of problems.
Over the entire lifetime of the EES both countries, yet, developed trends of
asymmetric ?-convergence regarding the overall ‘policy ID’ of the EES. In the case
of the UK, this asymmetry was more imbalanced towards employability, reflecting
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433
the initial focus of EU member states during the negotiation of the integration of the
Employment Title into the Amsterdam Treaty (cf. chapter 3.1.2.1). Germany
adopted a more balanced approach to address the different thematic topics of the
EES, albeit also moving reforms stronger towards the employability, entrepreneurship and to a lesser degree to the equal opportunity pillar. The lesser output under
the adaptability pillar in both cases points at the, albeit differently strong institutionalised, influence and autonomy of the social partners in this area (cf. chapter 2.2.2.1,
2.2.2.2, 5.1 and 5.2).
Table 48: Number of Main Socio-Economic Policies Adopted in the UK and Germany under the EES’s Thematic Focus
UK
Germany
Employability 43 49
Entrepreneurship 19 41
Adaptability 11 18
Equal Opportunities 17 27
Source: Own compilation based on 5.1 and 5.2.
Higher output figures of policy reforms in Germany than in the UK point at the need
to overcome a deeper gap based on bigger domestic policy misfit. Yet, in terms of convergence these efforts did not prove to be successful as due to the persisting
German employment mal-performance, caused by an unfavourable intervening
macro-economic climate. In view of ?-convergence, when comparing the adoption
dates of functionally equivalent policies, alignment of national policies was to be
witnessed within the empirical analysis not only in view of Germany getting closer
to British approaches. While the NDs and the Welfare-to-Work package were
adopted before the ‘JUMP’, ‘Job-AQTIV Act’, the ‘Hartz’ reforms and the ‘Agenda
2010’, which show proximity to the former British policies, the early German vocational training programmes of 1998/99 were adopted before similar British initiatives. At the same time some important reforms, such as national equality legislation, the British ‘Jobcentre Plus’ and the German ‘Jobcentre’ or enterprise promotion and business start-up legislation were adopted rather in parallel, pointing at the
agenda-setting potential of the EES as well as potentially also at the party political
and domestic problem proximity of the two countries. Yet, in most of the cases of
functional equivalence, British policies were chronological forerunners of German
reforms, having at least had the opportunity to inspire synthesis or even emulation,
as could be assumed in the case of the British 1998 tax reforms and the German
‘Tax Reform 2000’ (cf. table 49).
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Table 49: Main Examples for ?-Convergence in Terms of Functional Equivalence
UK Germany
NDs/Welfare to Work package
(1997/98 ff.)
Employment Promotion Reform Act (1998)
Job-AQTIV Act (2002)
‘Hartz’ reforms (2002)
Agenda 2010 (2003)
NDYP (1997/98) JUMP (1999)
Development and Opportunities for Young
People in Social Hotspots (2001)
Reducing Youth Unemployment (2002)
Jump plus (2003)
ND 25+ (1997/98) Programme for the Long-term Unemployed
(1999)
Jobs for the Long-term Unemployed (2003)
Re-Entry of the Long-Term Unemployed over
25 into the Labour Market - Work for the
Long-term Unemployed (2003)
NDDP (1997/98)
Disabled Persons Tax Credit (1999)
Disability Discrimination Act (2000)
Act to Combat Unemployment of Severely
Disabled People (2001)
Social Code, 9th book (SGB IX) (2001)
Act on the Promotion of Training and Employment of Persons with Severe
Disabilities (2004)
ND 50+ (1999) 50+ Die können es (2000)
Act on Income of Older Workers (2005)
Job Seekers Allowance (1998) SGB III (1998)
Working Family Tax Credit (1998)
Child Tax Credit (1998)
Working Tax Credit (2004)
Tax Reform 2000
Small Firms Training Loans (1998)
Work Based Learning for Adults (1999)
Workforce Development Loans (2000)
Workforce Development Strategy (2002)
Employer Training Projects (2002)
National Employer Training Programme
(2005)
Proficiency Development for Economic
Change – Structural Changes of Further Training in Companies (2000)
Culture of Learning and Development of
Competence (2001)
An Enhanced Culture of Learning (2001)
Graduate Apprenticeship (2000) National Action Plan for Vocational
Training (1998)
Training Places Programme for the new
Länder (1999)
Special Programme for the Provision of Initial
Vocational Training for Young People (2003)
Training Offensive 2003 (2003)
National Pact for Training (2004)
Vocational Training Act (2004)
Local Strategic Partnership (2001)
Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (2001)
Community Empowerment Fund (2001)
Community Chest (2001)
InnoNet (1999)
InnoRegio (1999)
Bio-Regio-Initiative (2000)
Innovative Regional Centre of Growth (2001)
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UK Germany
Promotion of Job-Creating Infrastructure
(2001)
Promotion of R&D in Innovative Organisations with a Potential for Growth in
Disadvantaged Regions (2003)
Part-time Work Directive (2000) Law on the Social Security of Flexible Working-time Arrangements (1998)
Act on Part-time Working and Fixed-term
Employment Contracts (2001)
Jobcentre Plus (2002) Jobcentre (2002)
‘Hartz’ reforms (2002)
Employment Bill (2002) Employment Promotion Reform Act (1998)
Skills for Life (2002)
Skills Strategy for England – 21st Century
Skills Realising our Potential (2003)
New Deal for Skills (2003)
Innovation and Jobs in the Information Society of the 21st Century (1999)
Lifelong Learning for Everybody (2000)
Lifelong Learning – Further Education as a
Basic Need (2000)
Strategy for Lifelong Learning in the
Federal Republic of Germany (2004)
Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (2004)
Women in Higher Education and in
Research Institutes (2001)
Women in the Information Society and Technology (2001)
Equal Opportunities of Women in Research
and University Teaching (2001)
Women Physicists Campaign (2002)
Source: Own compilation based on chapter 5.1 and 5.2.
The more important facet of the Europeanisation impact of the EES might, yet, have
been the change of cognitive/normative structures of domestic employment policies
inspired by the instruments of the OMC. British and German employment policy
approaches have proven to be open to change instigated by exchange of practice and
information also in areas of mismatching national traditions, such as the greater
focus on the reduction of the gender pay gap, the new focus on female participation
or the changes related to the British social partnership paradigm in 2003/04. This
openness can be assessed to have resulted in a medium to medium strong impact in
the UK and a medium strong to strong impact in Germany. In both cases, the EES
‘made it more popular’ among actors involved to reflect on topics such as lifelong
learning, gender equality, older workers, flexibility of working arrangements or
activation measures. The lesser degree of impact in the UK is largely caused by the
ex-ante proximity of the domestic approach to the overall ‘policy ID’ of the EES. In
Germany the medium strong impact was strengthened and became strong with the
2002/03 reform boost of the ‘Hartz’ reforms and the ‘Agenda 2010’, initiating a
substantive change of domestic policy paradigm towards the ideas embedded in the
EES.
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So, the overall Europeanisation impact of the EES on German employment policies,
due to the huge reforms adopted in 2002/03, tends towards transformation. The
impact on underlying cognitive/normative structures are to be located within the area
of transformation given that these 2002/03 reforms embraced the overall ‘policy ID’
more profoundly than previous reforms. The impact of the EES on British employment policies lies within the field of absorption. The impact on cognitive/normative
structures in this case leans towards accommodation/upgrading given that national
policy shortcomings, such as the enhancement of social partner integration, insufficient balancing of flexibility and security or low skills levels, were increasingly
tackled in a long-run perspective. Even if in the case of the UK the results point at
largely superficial changes, the country, nevertheless, shows elements of ?convergence to the overall ‘policy ID’ of the EES. The assumption of a higher Europeanisation impact of the EES in Germany than in the UK has, thus, been verified.
Reforms of the late first and early second phase of the EES, explicitly referring to
the EES in their wording, balanced policy misfit and aligned Germany’s employment policies more closely to the EES.
Final Conclusions
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Table 50: Europeanisation of Employment Policy-Making and Policies in the UK
and Germany – The Final Picture and Result
Domain of Europeanisation Europeanisation
impact
Category of
Europeanisation
Domestic
structures
Public
Policy
Cognitive/
Normative
structures
Retrenchment
(becoming less
European)
Inertia
(absence of change)
Absorption
(largely superficial
form of change)
Accommodation /
Upgrading
(moderate form of
adaptation)
Missing
(adaptation pressure too strong)
High
(changes of fundamental logics)
Transformation
(fundamental change)
Source: Own results and compilation; own design based on the contents of Radaelli 2003b:35,
Börzel/Risse 2003:70 and Meyer/Umbach 2007:94f.; partially inspired by the design of Mittag/Wessels 2003:414.
The overall result of Europeanisation of British and German employment policies
points at a medium to medium strong impact of the EES. It shows a slightly asymmetric integration of its underlying ‘policy ID’ into the NAPs, a cross-national and
cross-level convergence of policy instruments and an adaptation of cognitive/normative structures towards the ideas of the EES. Hence, as assumed by the
second guiding thesis, not only policy instruments, but also underlying policy ideas
and paradigms as well as partially also national traditions were adapted in a process
of ‘creeping’ Europeanisation. Political actors used the opportunities of the EES to
exchange information through peer review, bench-marking exercises and the exchange of best practices in order to apply policy learning, transfer and diffusion to
reform domestic employment policy approaches (cf. chapter 2.1.2.3.1).
Yet, given that no overall strong Europeanisation impact was found, the analysis
leaves room for the assumption that the change of domestic employment policies
D
UK
D
D. Structures
UK
D. structures
UK
D D
Policy
UK
Policy
Final Conclusions
438
was also based on similar domestic constellations and party political priorities with
the policy agendas of the social democratic (coalition) governments of the two countries dominated by similar problem perceptions and policy priorities.
Finally, it needs to be highlighted, that the EES seems to probably be the most realistic way to slightly converge national employment policy approaches. Acknowledging that no common European labour markets exists and that the performance of
national labour markets is largely based on a combination of domestic economic and
structural problems, the EES offers a flexible framework for employment policy coordination, which can be adapted to national priorities.
So, even if at first the EES must have seemed slightly ‘absurd’ a remedy for the
European unemployment disease of the 1990s, European policy-makers proved to
not have only been (roughly) right in deciding to co-ordinate EU member states’
employment policies in order to create common problem perceptions and understandings through supranational priority setting and ‘creeping’ Europeanisation of
domestic employment policies. If European policy-makers had not taken this opportunity to amend the European socio-economic policy armoury by soft policy coordination through OMC, they would have actually indeed been precisely wrong in
missing the chance to respond to common and internationalised problems, which
were increasingly undermining the legitimacy of the European integration construction, its socio-economic foundations and its political institutions (cf. chapter 1.1).
6.2 The Europeanisation Approach, the EES, and the OMC: Theoretico-Analytical
Mission Accomplished?
In the light of the assumptions of the third guiding thesis, the final sub-chapter
draws conclusions on the applicability of the Europeanisation approach to the analysis of domestic adaptation to the EES applying the OMC. The third guiding thesis
assumed that
The EES impacts on the Europeanisation of British and German employment
policies and policy-making via down-loading that initiates cross-loading, aiming
at both vertical and horizontal policy transfer.
Yet, the Europeanisation approach analytically strongly relies on the existence of
modest domestic misfit and adaptation pressure to explain change. This ex-ante
limitation impedes its analytical depth, and applicability in the case of the
EES/OMC.
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References
Zusammenfassung
Mit ihren spezifischen Merkmalen als neues Politikinstrument – wie etwa ihrem rechtlich nicht bindenden Charakter, dem Ziel des gegenseitigen Politiklernens durch Austausch bester Praktiken oder gemeinsamen Evaluierungsprozessen – stellt die Europäische Beschäftigungsstrategie (EBS) und die mit ihr Anwendung findende Offene Methode der Koordinierung (OMK) beschäftigungspolitische Akteure in der EU vor die neuen Herausforderungen von Politik-Koordinierung, die die Politikgestaltung im europäischen Mehrebenensystem neu prägen.
Das vorliegende Buch beschäftigt sich intensiv mit diesen unterschiedlichen Facetten der EBS und ihrer Wirkung. Es geht dabei über bisherige Einzelstudien zur EBS hinaus und befasst sich nicht nur mit deren Entstehung, Entwicklung und Merkmalen. Es kontrastiert vielmehr den eigenen Anspruch der EBS mit ihrer politischen Realität und untersucht theoretisch hoch reflektiert deren Einfluss auf Politik-Koordinierungsstrukturen, Beschäftigungspolitiken und zugrunde liegenden Ideen sowie deren Zusammenspiel mit anderen wirtschaftspolitischen Bereichen. Neben der EU-Ebene dienen Großbritannien und Deutschland als Fallbeispiele für mitgliedstaatliche Anpassungsprozesse. Das Buch verankert seine Wirkungsanalyse sehr fundiert in der wissenschaftstheoretischen Debatte um Europäisierung und Politikkonvergenz, um deren Anwendbarkeit im Falle der EBS kritisch zu analysieren. Es komplettiert damit Europäisierungsstudien zu regulativer Politik durch die Analyse des Einflusses weicher Politik-Koordinierung im europäischen Mehrebenensystem.