The notion of a European social model assumes that European societies have certain features in common which distinguish them positively from the United States, among them most notably the social partnership in labour relations, redistributive welfare state schemes, and cohesive societies with a...

The German "Hartz reforms", introduced by the Red-Green coalition government in the years 2003 to 2005, form part of a broader pattern of European activation policies which have become known as "new labour" policies. The idea of these reforms was to reduce welfare dependency and to boost...