Labor Policy in the EU: The New Emphasis on Education and Training under the Treaty of Amsterdam

Labor market policy in the EU is seemingly a rather different animal today than heretofore because of the belated recognition that healthy employment development is the precondition for achieving fair and decent social and working standards. The pursuit of often ambitious mandatory labor standards appears to have been downplayed, and the notion of coordination to have superceded harmonization. The new means of coordination (via national employment plans) is benchmarking, identifying best-practice measures in employment policy, and offering encouragement to member states to progressively develop their own policies in this light. The presumed goal is to secure meaningful common action in the context of institutional diversity in national labor markets -- the perennial problem in EU social policy formation. I review the new employment strategy with special reference to its education and training components and in the process question whether recent developments presage a sea change in the evolution of Community labor policy. "If I were to set the process of uniting Europe in motion once more, I would start with education." (Jean Monnet)