Flexicurity: Will the European Medicine Heal the Lithuanian Labour Market?
Flexicurity: Will the European Medicine Heal the Lithuanian Labour Market?

Summary/Abstract: Over the past few years the EU Commission has widely promoted the flexicurity strategy, which the Member States should adopt during the reforms of their labour markets. This paper seeks to provide a critical assessment of the potential merits of adopting the strategy in Lithuania. The main findings are twofold. First, the paper found that the hypothesis behind the flexicurity strategy lack solid theoretical and empirical support, which implies that the widely promoted benefits of the strategy might fail to realise. Second, the paper argues that the labour market policy in Lithuania faces a number of country – specific challenges, which were inherited from more than a decade long economic and political transition. Hence, instead of attempting “copy-pasting” the reforms advocated by the EU Commission, the Lithuanian policy makers should put the institutional capacity building and increasing effectiveness of adopted policies at the top of the list of priorities.

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