The OMC and the Governance of the Lisbon Strategy

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The OMC and the Governance of the Lisbon Strategy

• Jonathan Zeitlin
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• March 2007

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Plan of the talk

• I. What is the OMC? Definitions, Origins, Promise
• II. The OMC in Question Critique and Evidence
• III. Lisbon Strategy Governance Time to
  Reorient the Relaunch?

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I. What is the OMC? Definitions, Origins, Promise

• An experimentalist approach to EU governance
  based on iterative benchmarking of national
  progress towards common European objectives and
  organized mutual learning

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Where did it come from?

• Rooted in new Treaty-based EU policy coordination
  processes introduced during 1990s
• Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPGs)
• European Employment Strategy (EES)
• Defined as a broadly applicable governance
  instrument for EU policy making at the Lisbon
  Summit in March 2000
• Social policy inclusion, pensions, health care
• Extended to other policy areas
  education/training, RD/innovation, information
  society/eEurope, etc.

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Defining features of a variable method

• Joint definition by EU member states of initial
  objectives, indicators, priorities or guidelines,
  and sometimes targets
• National action plans or strategy reports assess
  performance against objectives and metrics
  propose reforms accordingly
• Peer review of national plans through mutual
  criticism and exchange of good practices, backed
  up by recommendations in some cases
• Periodic re-elaboration of plans, and less
  frequently, of broader objectives and metrics in
  light of experience gained in their
  implementation

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Recipe, cookbook, or architecture?

• OMC not a fixed recipe, but a cookbook with
  various recipes, some lighter and others heavier
• Variations in modalities/procedures depending on
  
• Specific characteristics of the policy field
• Treaty basis of EU competence
• Willingness of Member States to undertake joint
  action
• Some OMCs include only fragmentary elements of
  the architecture (e.g. targets, scoreboards)

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OMC as a new governance instrument for Lisbon
Strategy

• Reconciling pursuit of European objectives with
  respect for national diversity subsidiarity
  through iterative benchmarking of progress
  against common indicators
• Promoting mutual emulation and cross-national
  learning through systematic comparison of
  different approaches to similar problems
• A third way for EU governance between
  harmonization/centralization and regulatory
  competition/fragmentation
• Never intended as sole governance instrument for
  Lisbon to be combined with other EU policy tools
  
• legislation, social dialogue, structural funds,
  community action programs, etc.

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OMC as a template for EU policy making

• After 2000 Lisbon Summit, OMC rapidly became the
  governance instrument of choice for EU policy
  making in complex, domestically sensitive areas
• where the Treaty base for Community action is
  weak
• where inaction is politically unacceptable
• where diversity among Member States precludes
  harmonization
• where widespread strategic uncertainty recommends
  mutual learning at the national as well as EU
  level

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OMC as an international policy model

• Complexity, diversity, and strategic uncertainty
  are defining features of public policymaking in
  all advanced democracies, not just the EU
• Hence OMC has begun to attract attention from
  academics and policy makers elsewhere, as a tool
  for
• improving multi-level governance in federal
  systems/trade blocs
• US welfare reform beyond block grants and
  federal mandates
• Canadian federal social union benchmarking
  against common indicators and exchange of best
  practices
• Andean Community of Nations social inclusion
  process
• enhancing implementation of international
  commitments
• ILO core labor standards
• UN regional ageing policy (Economic Commission on
  Europe)

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II. The OMC in Question Critique and Evidence

• Effectiveness of OMC sharply challenged by Lisbon
  Strategy Mid-Term Review
• Kok Report (2004), Barroso Commission Lisbon New
  Start (2005)
• OMC blamed for slow progress towards Lisbon
  targets
• Too many conflicting objectives, indicators,
  reporting processes
• Weak incentives for MS policy delivery
• Political critique not based on systematic review
  of available evidence about performance of
  different OMC processes

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Advancing the European knowledge economy through
OMC a failure?

• Weak performance of innovation/information
  society initiatives within Lisbon Strategy
• Lack of progress towards 3 RD target
• Limited impact/visibility of eEurope policies
• Lite OMC recipes and fragmentary architectures
• European Action Plans, objectives, targets,
  indicators, benchmarking/scoreboards
• But no agreed National Action Plans, systematic
  monitoring/reporting, peer review, or
  country-specific recommendations weak mutual
  learning mechanisms
• External evaluation (Tavistock Institute 2005)
  OMC in these areas cannot yet be said to be a
  success or failure simply has not been fully
  implemented

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The OMC in action employment and social
inclusion

• Employment and social inclusion most fully
  developed and institutionalized OMC processes
• Methodological problems of assessing the causal
  impact of an iterative policymaking process based
  on collaboration between EU institutions and MS
  without legally binding sanctions
• But now a large body of empirical research, based
  on both official and independent sources
• Synthetic overview in Zeitlin Pochet (eds.),
  The OMC in Action (P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2005)

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OMC in employment and social inclusion a
qualified success

• Improvements in EU employment performance
• Structural improvements, 1997-2001
• Slower but continuing progress, 2002-6
• But connections to EES complex and uncertain
• Substantive policy change
• Increased political salience/ambition of national
  employment and social inclusion policies
• Broad shifts in national policy thinking
• Some influence on specific reforms/programs
• Two-way interaction between OMCs and national
  policies rather than one-way impact

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OMC in employment/inclusiona qualified success
(2)

• Procedural shifts in governance/policymaking
• Horizontal integration across policy areas
• Improved statistical and steering capacity
• Vertical coordination between levels of
  governance
• Participation of non-state/subnational actors
• Particularly strong mobilization in social
  inclusion
• Uneven but growing participation in EES
• Social NGOs and local/regional authorities more
  active than social partners

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OMC in employment and inclusion a qualified
success (3)

• Mutual learning
• Identification of common challenges and promising
  policy approaches
• Enhanced awareness of policies, practices, and
  problems in other MS
• Statistical harmonization and capacity building
• MS stimulated to rethink own approaches/practices,
  as a result of comparisons with other countries
  and ongoing obligations to re-evaluate national
  performance against European objectives

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OMC in employment and inclusion limitations

• Lack of openness and transparency
• Dominant role of bureaucratic actors in OMC
  processes at both EU and national level
• Weak integration into national policy making
• NAPs as reports to EU rather than operational
  plans
• Low public awareness and media coverage
• Little bottom-up/horizontal policy learning
• Few examples of upwards knowledge transfer and
  cross-national diffusion from innovative local
  practice

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A reflexive reform strategy

• Overcome limitations of existing OMC processes by
  applying method to its own procedures
• Benchmarking, peer review, monitoring,
  evaluation, iterative redesign
• Ongoing reforms as evidence of practical
  viability
• Strengthening of peer review/mutual learning
  programs
• Proposals by EU institutions for greater
  openness, stakeholder participation, and
  mainstreaming of OMCs into domestic policy
  making (2003-6)

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III. Lisbon Strategy GovernanceTime to reorient
the relaunch?

• The relaunched Lisbon Strategy, 2005-
• Refocusing of objectives on growth jobs
• Integration of Economic Policy and Employment
  Guidelines
• Feeding in and feeding out of streamlined
  OMC on Social Protection/Inclusion
• Shift from sectoral, multilateral policy
  coordination (OMC) to integrated, bilateral
  dialogue on National Reform Programs

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Closing the implementation gap through better
governance?

• Results of first two rounds of National Reform
  Programs not encouraging
• Inadequate integration of social, economic, and
  employment policies
• Decoupling of policy making from mutual learning
• Reduced monitoring and coordinating capacity
• Insufficient openness to civil society actors
• National ownership remains limited

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Towards Lisbon III?

• Mounting pressure to reorient the relaunched
  Lisbon Strategy
• Un Nouvel Élan pour lEurope Sociale
  declaration of 9 MS Labor/Social ministers
• Social priorities of EU Trio Presidency
  (DE/PT/SI)
• EPSCO Council Key Messages (spring 2007)
• 10-year review of EES/OMC (2007)
• 2008 revision of Integrated Guidelines