"Stratégie de Lisbonne" : les promesses sociales non tenues.

From 2004 on a new Lisbon strategy was in force, after the Commission and Council's decisions to refocus the previous European Employment strategy and associated Open methods of coordination in the social area. After Kok's taskforce report, the order of the day was to focus on structurall reforms and on the economy. Other important events also happened at that time : the first was a new Commission, the second enlargement bringing in 12 new member states with vastly differing social protection systems and living conditions. Not to mention the economic crisis that emerged as a key development from 2007-2008. It is time to take stock of what is often called "Lisbon" by way of metonymy. The present text tries to contribute to this goal. As for example the flexicurity promotion demonstrates, the Lisbon strategy was largely short of delivering its initial promises. More realistically, it should mainly be seen as a discourse disseminated as coming along economic reform being pursued under the auspices of EU law, thus most often promoting economic freedoms at the expense of social rights.