THE
EUROPE WORK EMPLOYEMENT BIENNIALS
1990
– 2004
Lasaire
opened a fundamental reflection on the social dimension
of Europe when it launched it's biennial meetings
in 1990. These meetings have now become a reference
point for the European social debate and are an
opportunity to advance social thinking, test and
develop new ideas, bring together the widest possible
range of actors and social cultures, and encourage
"capillary action" between social models.
Issues
concerning employment and exclusion from the workplace
and society have gradually come to the fore: the
central theme of the Biennials can be summed up
as: "How to put employment at the heart of
building Europe". To fulfil its ambition of
putting employment and the social dimension at the
centre of Europe, LASAIRE sought to create an original
forum to facilitate pluralist exchanges of views,
give social competencies and practices that are
too often self-contained an opportunity to meet
and compare their analyses, and outline suggestions
and ingredients for solutions.
These
meetings owe their originality to the fact that
from the start the debates have been organized in
a pluralist framework bringing together the European
social actors (the European Commission, UNICE, CEEP,
ETUC) employer's federations and business representatives,
trade union organizations and union officials in
companies, academies and experts from the various
member states.
We
originally started our intention to make these Biennials
truly European meetings. The issues to be discussed
were chosen from a directly European standpoint
and we made sure that a wide range of social actors
would be invited to take part. This way of proceeding
was not fully achieved from the outset and we gradually
refined it, continually strengthening the European
approach in the design of the Biennials, their conceptual
formulation and their practical organisation. For
this fifth Biennial we have therefore intensified
the transnational cooperation put in place in 1996.
These
meetings are preceded by a long period of preparatory
and development work in close cooperation with European
social actors, UNICE, CEEP, ETUC and the Commission,
plus labour ministers and leading experts well known
in Europe. The debates are organized around a document
that reviews the current parameters of the question
to be discussed and highlights the main issues.
The
first two Biennials in 1990 and 1992 discussed the
different aspects of buildings social Europe: structuring
the European social actors, the Social Protocol
to the Maastricht Treaty, the beginnings of the
European social dialogue, the different socio-productive
models in Europe, the place of the work, education
and training, and labour relations in competition
criteria, and immigration problems. The key theme
of the third meeting was work , un employment and
European economic policy , around which were grouped
the workshop subjects: the Europe of the regions,
public services and building Europe, and combating
exclusion. The fourth was held against the background
of renegotiating the European treaties.
The subjects discussed during the Biennials are
partly a continuation and deeper analysis of questions
already debated, and partly new topics chosen to
reflect current events and demands. Each Biennials
does however have a central theme, which for the
fifth meeting was obviously linked to the new situation
created by the Single Currency. This is a reality
that no-one now questions but which deserves to
be discussed in more detail, particularly on points
that were not settled in Amsterdam. At the same
time we made the idea of a Europe-United States
comparison an integral part of all topics discussed.
The sixth and seventh meetings were set around the
Nice treaty and the enlargement issues.
