Europeanisation of Employment Policy in the European Semester: Labour Pains?

The European Semester is a cycle of economic and fiscal policy coordination within the EU and is part of its economic governance framework. It potentially allows EU institutions to exercise their influence in policy formulation, supervision, and guidance on issues touching upon virtually the entire spectrum of Member States’ economic and social policies. This influence is studied in the field of employment policy to determine whether the creation of the European Semester has led member states to further Europeanise their policies by analyzing the extent to which member states implement the relevant European Semester recommendations from 2011-2016. This extent varies across member states but has overall been fairly constant over time. Due to the reduction in recommendations issued, the relevance of the European Semester has declined, and it suffers from consistent problems of legitimacy.