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The article examined the influence of the European crisis politics on French labour market regulation. The European crisis management has resulted in institutionalised interventionism, that restraint the European Union member states’ ability to regulate her national labour markets. France was less affected by the crisis but it was also in the focus of the European interventionism. On the basis of the labour market reforms ‘Loi Macron’ and ‘Loi El Khomri’, the article investigates what role the European institutions play and how big was the influence of the European Union in the national negotiation process.

With the European Green Deal (EGD), the European Commission presented an ambitious roadmap for accelerated “ecological modernisation” in December 2019. Semantically, the EGD is linked to the New Deal and the debates surrounding the Green New Deal. In contrast, the European Commission’s strategy aims less at profound social change and the questioning of social power relations. Rather, the EGD remains largely within the leitmotif of “ecological modernisation”, which relies on technological innovations without far-reaching social change. The thrust of the EGD bears the hallmark of ecological modernisation; it is about reconciling economy and ecology, about continuing the growth path under green auspices. The greening of the EU is to take place primarily by means of technological innovations. Amongst others, clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide removals (CDR) are central pillars to reach the aim of climate neutrality by 2050. Technological improvements are closely linked to the aim of improving the competitiveness of the European economy and stabilising global power relations under a green mantle. Such a strategy runs the risk of renewing social inequalities within the EU as well as globally. In addition, the war in Ukraine raises further problems for the fulfilment of the EGD.

The architecture of European labour policy has changed in the past years of the euro crisis and its management. While in the pre-crisis phase EU labour policy still had a mainly symbolic character, the EU crisis management gave it a much more binding character. The article analyses the continuities and shifts in European labour policy against the background of austerity and crisis policy arguing that a new labour policy complex was able to emerge at the European level. While institutional shifts were considerable, the market-liberal orientation of labour policy remained in place. However, it was radicalized with the resilience approach. The article therefore provides an overview of the continuity and change of European labour policy in the euro crisis on the basis of institutional and discursive shifts.

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