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Structural Reforms (SRs) are increasingly at the core of the European and national agenda. But what are SRs? And what are the main factors shaping their content? This analysis of the structural reforms adopted, between 2008 and 2015 in five European Union (EU) countries - the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Italy - allows us to address these two questions. The book proposes a new definition of SRs, combining supply-side and more demand-side policy measures. An analysis of the five countries under scrutiny shows how a combination of EU constraints and opportunities, domestic path-dependency and political dynamics has resulted in different structural reform trends: while some countries have experienced an overall devaluation in social standards (e.g. Ireland), others have pursued more mixed strategies. What is more, SRs have gone through different periods. After a first phase of anti-cyclical measures, austerity dominated between 2011 and 2013. In more recent years, many countries have followed a more pro-growth strategy. The book provides evidence that the EU influenced SRs but lacked a coherent agenda to support growth. In such a context, different countries implemented different reform strategies, reflecting their (partly) diverging socio-economic models.

The present chapter provides an overview of structural reforms (SRs) - measures to improve economic growth prospects and the ability of economies to adjust to economic shocks - introduced in Europe between 1999 and 2012 and, in particular, during the Great Recession (2008-12). Such a cross-policy analysis - including social protection (e.g. pensions), education policy, R&D and public sector reforms - makes it possible to shed light on the complex interaction of the labour market policies, that are at the core of the volume, with social policies (aimed at welfare production and redistribution) and economic policies (aimed at economic production). While the concept of SRs is highly debated in the literature and needs some revision of its normative roots, we consider it a good descriptive tool: it helps to trace reform trends in a number of policy areas and to understand the overall functioning of a socio-economic system. The present chapter proposes a new typology of SRs for a more detailed analysis of SRs trends in Europe. Through the analysis of reforms between 1999 and 2012 we address two key questions: Is there a common reform trend of a ‘race to the bottom’ in relation to social and employment rights? What has been the impact of the Great Recession: Do we see overall continuity or a shift between the pre- and post-crisis? In the following we analyse five country clusters – Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Continental European, Southern European and Visegrad countries that are consistent with the different varieties of capitalism and employment regimes – and we provide evidence of diverse reform trends over time. The present contribution is organised as follows. Section two presents the research questions at the core of the chapter and provides a brief review of the literature on socio-economic reforms in Europe over the last decades. Section three gives the definition of SRs and the complementarity between socio-economic policies before and since the Great Recession. Section four provides an overview of SRs in the EU with a focus on reform trends and outputs. Section five draws some conclusions.