Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?
Introduction
Against a background of growing international competition and of pervasive uncertainty and
fluidity, flexicurity policies are being actively promoted in the EU policy agenda as a useful policy tool
to address the needs of business to respond to rapid changes, while providing workers with a safety
net. On one hand, businesses need to be able to adjust to new challenges and improve their competi-
tiveness. On the other, the European social model needs to be reinforced and provide workers with
protection, but also opportunities, in a volatile and threatening environment. The flexicurity model
seems to provide the link between these seemingly incompatible goals.
However, some critical questions arise as to the universal relevance of this model:
a) Is the flexicurity model the only way forward to achieve ecoomic efficiency for business and
adequate protection or workers? What is the cost of not introducing flexicurity measures in
an economy that struggles to remain competitive?
b) Can flexicurity policies (however broad their scope) be adjusted to fit in with the idiosyn-
crasies of widely varied national and institutional backgrounds, whilst retaining their main
characteristics?
c) Does the flexicurity trade-off by definition always lead to a “win-win situation” for all the
actors involved, regardless of the national context?
The aim of this work is to address the above questions, as well as to shed some light on four
particular aspects of the flexicurity agenda and the concurrent debate:
i) The flexicurity policy agenda is based on an asymmetrical relationship, as it involves a trade-
off between unequal partners, with winners and losers both across, as well as within the ranks
of the social actors;
ii) The flexicurity model is not a “one-size-fits-all” model, as there exist huge national differ-
ences that need to be taken into consideration in the process of policy implementation;
iii) The importance of institutional and cultural factors (for example, the institutional back-
ground, the consensus culture, the level of trust, indiidual and collective expectations from
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