The Puzzle of Jobless Growth: The Challenge of Reforming the Greek Labour Market

Abstract

The EU’s aspiration of creating an open, flexible market among its member states confronts head-on the twin dilemmas of the limitations of its own policy instruments and the in-built resistance to liberal reform found at the domestic level. The single European market created new sets of competitive pressure at the national level, but left governments to choose their own reform paths. With the EMU, the concerns about adaptability and asymmetries increased and the EU sought to broaden its economic policy coordination. But it was the Lisbon 2000 agenda that focussed the attention on a prescribed model of structural reform. The EU had the aspiration, but it was equipped only with exhortation, reporting, and peer pressure as instruments for policy implementation.