The Current Reforms Of The Labour Markets And Of The Related Social Policies At European Union Level – Are They The Best Solutions To Solve The Problems Which Appeared During The Crisis?

• Main Authors: Alina Georgeta AILINCĂ, Floarea IORDACHE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: “Victor Slăvescu” Centre for Financial and Monetary Research 2012-06-01
• Series: Financial Studies
• Subjects: economic crisis; structural reforms; public policies
• Online Access: ftp://www.ipe.ro/RePEc/vls/vls_pdf/vol16i2p147-163.pdf

The global economic and financial crisis seems to have unfortunate residual effects materialised in the increase of the budget deficits and of the public debt within the European Union, situation observed mostly in the old member states. Among the major effects of the crisis we can notice more serious fiscal-budgetary problems, as well as social and labour market problems, with a strong impact on the restoration of the present and future macroeconomic balance. Actually, the measures meant to restore the public finances on their floating line, thus ensuring the fiscal-budgetary sustainability, were the starting line for the economic and social reforms, which many times had rather adverse effects than beneficial effects on the analysed economies. In this paper we will present the measures proposed by the governments of some EU (European Union) countries for the labour market, health systems, education and social protection, highlighting the criticisable aspects, such as the lack of concrete results of the employment programs and of the social policies aiming to ameliorate and compensate the effects of population ageing.