The EU’s competitiveness drive could turn quality jobs into a mirage

By Davide Monaco

In the wake of the Draghi report and the EU Competitiveness Compass, ‘competitiveness’ is again dominating debates about the present and future of EU economies and societies, despite being long criticised as an elusive concept or a dangerous (and wrong) obsession.

This is hardly new. The search for competitiveness has shaped EU integration and policy discussions for at least three decades. It was already at the heart of the 1993 White Paper on ‘Growth, Competitiveness and Employment’ and the 2000 Lisbon Strategy. A decade later, the drive for competitiveness underpinned how the eurozone debt crisis was managed, legitimising austerity, wage restraint and the rise of precarious work in many countries.

This time, we’re being assured that competitiveness will bring about ‘good jobs’ and won’t come at the expense of wages and workers’ wellbeing. But will this really be the case? If recent developments are any guide, we have some very good reasons to be skeptical.

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