Introduction

There is an abundant literature that highlights and discusses the ongoing process of economic internationalisation and globalisation, as well as the increasing use of new information and communication technologies in the production of goods and products. A very specific example of this discussion is the study of the economic and, to a lesser extent, social processes of ‘Europeanisation’ that have arisen due to the increasing intervention of the EU and the emergence of a supranational dimension of regulation in the social and economic spheres. As result of the process of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with concrete convergence criteria, the national states’ space for manoeuvre at the economic level has been redefined. In this framework, reinforcement of the EU's social dimension – in order to secure the operation of solidarity at the supra-national level – becomes a crucial element.

This chapter draws on the conclusions reached in earlier work aimed at deconstructing the key principles of the European Employment Strategy (EES) (see Serrano Pascual, 2000a; Crespo and Serrano, 2002; Serrano Pascual, 2003: forthcoming). The focus will centre on the concept of activation with regard to young people, since it is considered that this concept is central to the paradigm of intervention proposed by European institutions. The aim is the analysis of the role of this European strategy to combat youth unemployment, developed on the basis of the notion of activation, in the ‘reconstruction’ or ‘invention’ of youth unemployment. Although it is far from evident that this European strategy directed at young people has had significant repercussions in terms of reducing youth unemployment figures, it seems to have had a certain impact on the institutional management of the social consequences of youth unemployment. Therefore, the regulatory nature of the European institutions, as well as their potential role in the socialisation processes, is discussed, with the aim of answering the question of whether or not the EES constitutes a relevant approach to the problems to be solved, and whether or not it has an impact at the national level.

Special attention will be paid to the implications of the change that has taken place at the heart of the analysis of unemployment, now that the discussion, formerly expressed in terms of ‘lack of employment’, has come to focus on the ‘lack of employability’.