Aliki Mouriki
b) the principle of negotiated trade-offs, implying that the employees who accept increased uncer-
tainty in their working life receive some compensation in the form of extra security. This
principle pre-supposes the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the decision-making
progress, political guarantees to ensure the implementation of the flexicurity strategy over
time and transparency regarding the distribution of gains and losses;
c) the principle of sustainable employment for all, including the weakest segments of the popula-
tion, in view of enhancing social cohesion. To this end, the flexicurity strategy should aim at
improving the distribution of welfare and living conditions, as well as empowering weaker
groups to cope with their situation.
The country that is unmistakably always taken as a ‘role model’ in this context is Denmark, as it
complies fully with all of the above criteria. The Danish “flexicurity model” can be described as a hy-
brid system, combining characteristics from the Scandinavian welfare state with a liberal employment
regime. The term “flexicurity” in fact only describes some long-standing labour market practices
rather than a deliberate strategy to comply with the pre-requisites of a model construction.
According to the European Flexicurity Expert Group, the success of the Danish flexicurity system is
a result of combining adequate unemployment insurance, relative flexible labour laws and efforts to
help people find jobs, as well as a very highly developed industrial relations system and social dialogue
culture (European Commission, 2007). Its three basic components —high labour mobility (the result
of low employment protection, even for permanent employment), strong activation policies, and
generous social benefits- form the so-called “golden triangle” (see Diagram 6).
The main elements of this model are a high investment on active labour market policies, with a
particularly strong emphasis on lifelong learning; generous social security systems enabling easy and
safe transitions between different employment contracts and jobs; and a long tradition of social dia-
logue, based on mutual trust. The philosophy underpinning the Danish labour market approach can
be summed up in the slogan “protect workers, not jobs”. The flip side of the coin is that this “golden
triangle” is mostly tailored to the profile of highly skilled, mobile and flexible workers who are able
to switch jobs and job functions easily.
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