Documents Vesan, Patrik 5 results

"The paper explains why across Europe very few job matches are facilitated by public employment services (PES), looking at the existence of a double-sided asymmetric information problem on the labour market. It is argued that although a PES potentially reduces search costs, both employers and employees have strong incentives not to use the PES. The reason is that employers try to avoid the ‘worst' employees, and employees try to avoid the ‘worst' employers. Therefore PES get caught in a low-end equilibrium that is almost impossible to escape. The mechanisms leading to this low-end equilibrium are illustrated by means of qualitative interviews with 40 private employers in six European countries."

"In September 2015, the European Commission launched a new political initiative ‐‐ the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) ‐‐ with the stated aim of strengthening the social acquis of the European Union and promoting upward social convergence across eurozone countries. In January 2017, the European Parliament voted in a resolution supporting the EPSR. This article examines the positioning of the parliamentary political groups to grasp the tensions that emerged during the debate. In so doing, it provides empirical evidence of the existence of a complex ‘clash syndrome' in European social policies which results from the combination of vertical and horizontal forms of euroscepticism. The main argument is that the coexistence of multiple political tensions may hamper the development of a stronger Social Europe, but may also lead to the emergence of new political coalitions through the ‘criss‐crossing' of different lines of conflict."

"This article reconstructs the role of European Commission President's political entrepreneurship in the further socialisation of the European Semester. Firstly, it analyses the context in which Juncker promoted the European Pillar of Social Rights. Secondly, it presents how such an initiative was mainstreamed into the Semester. Finally, by distinguishing among social retrenchment, social investment and social protection prescriptions, it analyses whether the post-2015 development of the Semester was consistent with Juncker's political efort. We fnd clear evidence of entrepreneurial activities in the strategic recourse to Presidency's Cabinet and the Secretary General and in the introduction of a new Social Scoreboard. Furthermore, we show that such socialisation process is congruent to the expected impact of European Pillar of Social Rights, which indeed contributes to strengthen an already ongoing incremental trend. Our analysis contributes to better qualify the socialisation process by highlighting its characteristics and the role of politics. These fndings are particularly important to understand whether the Social Pillar left a legacy to the current Commission's social agenda and to the EU responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, and whether these changes open a new window of opportunity to further reform the Semester"