EurActive: Flexicurity: can it work for France and Germany?

For the full report go to EurActivity or click on this linkFlexicurity: can it work for France and Germany?

As the EU struggles to adapt to the double challenge of increasingly globalised competition and demographic change, the focus is moving to member states' social systems and their ability to cope with these changed realities. Numerous experts have praised Nordic countries' systems, particularly that of Denmark, for their ability to create jobs while maintaining a high standard of social security for the unemployed. Industry associations also like the system because its liberal hire-and-fire rules allow for a high degree of flexibility and quick adaptation to downward as well as to upward market developments. Due to its potential for reconciling this kind of flexibility with social security, the system has been labelled 'flexicurity'. The concept of flexicurity rests on the assumption that flexibility and security are not contradictory, but complementary and even mutually supportive. It brings together a low level of protection for workers against dismissal with high unemployment benefits and a labour market policy based on a right for the unemployed to retraining. The concept of job security is replaced by employment security. Social dialogue between employers and employees is an important aspect of the flexicurity model. Could this maybe be the answer to the problems France and Germany are facing in trying to implement labour reforms.