'No one-size-fits-all approach to flexicurity'

Professor Ton Wilthagen, director of the flexicurity research programme at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and, as rapporteur of the Expert Group on flexicurity the mastermind behind the Commission's flexicurity initiative, urged a debate on flexicurity that must now become "more concrete and practice-oriented". He described flexicurity as a form of "mutual and joint risk management for employers and workers". Companies face the double risk of weakening market position and of a quantitative and qualitative mismatch of the labour supply; workers risk losing their job and employment security and may find it impossible to balance life and work. Helping the respective other side manage its risks while at the same time managing one's own is what flexicurity is all about, Wilthagen said. 

Emmanuel Jahan,  employment and social affairs representative in Brussels for the Air France - KLM group, stressed that flexicurity goes well beyond the usual boundaries of established social policies, making it necessary to set up networks t the national and transnational levels, bringing together regions, member states, social partners and enterprises. Citing the example of his own company he said that flexible firms are still facing strong obstacles, for example: 

• Differences in labour rights from one country to another that must be overcome by convergence; 
• a lack of legal certainty in social-partner agreements in different countries; 
• difficult administrative measures for workers settling in another member state; 
• uncertainty as to the applicability of rights in cases of legal disputes, and; 
• difficult access to European funds meant to facilitate flexibility and mobility.  

Annemarie Muntz,  president of Eurociett, the European Confederation of Private Employment Agencies, pointed out the joint declaration by her association, representing temporary work firms such Manpower, Adecco and Randstad, with the UNI-Europa trade union - the only sectoral social partner agreement on the issue, she said, deploring the fact that no trade union representative had been invited to this panel at Employment Week. Muntz stressed the importance of temporary agency work in easing the kinds of transitions that mark flexicurity - from unemployment to employment, from education to work, from one job to another, and also for allowing people to better balance life and work. She urged the removal of what she called "unjustified barriers", such as sector prohibitions for temporary work, and asked for temporary work agencies to be mentioned in the revised Lisbon employment guidelines.  

Employment Commissioner Vladimír Špidla said, speaking at Employment Week: "I think that the Commission has promoted the debate on flexicurity with its initiative to encourage worker's mobility and to facilitate transitions from one job to another. Of course, there are no simple answers and no single answers to all the questions that arise. But the objective is to put human capital at the centre of our efforts. This is exactly what the debate on flexicurity is all about."

Fernando Medina, secretary of state for employment and vocational training in Portugal, said at Employment Week: "I think flexicurity is a very, very complex issue, and from an honest point of view, we could not disintegrate this approach from national and cultural realities." He mentioned the example of Portugal, which, according to him, has at the same time one of the most restrictive labour legislations in Europe and one of the highest employment rates, adding: "If we try to import, without any criticism, some kind of Danish model, it is going to be a failure in every country, with the exception of Denmark."