La flexicurity in Europa: può sopravvivere a una doppia crisi?

The central question in this article is if the flexicurity - as a guideline for modernizing labour law, employment policies and welfare provisions in the European countries - can survive the economic and conceptual double crisis. The concept of flexicurity is rooted in the re-assessment of the idea that investments in social policy constitute an economic production factor. The global financial-economic crisis has put clear pressure on this condition. The public budgets on active labour market policies, education for young and old, and standards in income security have become in danger. Furthermore, the private investments in sustainable HRM-practices and education funds by companies and collective funds are easily victims of cost cutting.
The other crisis that is mentioned in the title of this article, refers to the fact that the concept of flexicurity "in itself" is in crisis. More and more academics, politicians and trade unions are formulating fundamental critics on the lack of theory underlying the concept, on its limits regards to a joint view among social partners and on the evidence that the concept is implemented in an unbalanced way towards flexibility with less guarantees on security for workers. The combination of the economic and conceptual crises re-inforces the risks of further erosion of the security element in flexicurity policies and practices. The crucial question nowadays is whether a real alternative to flexicurity exists. Alternative concepts, merely focusing on one dimension, can probably not achieve an integrated and sustainable approach that put both interests of employers and workers towards the negotiation tables. In order to give an answer to this central question, this article evaluates critically some new or intensified policies as response to the financial/economic crisis in the EU member states that reflect a flexicurity approach: Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK.