1.1.1.1 The Open Method of Coordination (OMC)

The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) was brought during the Lisbon Strategy as part of the European Employment Strategy (EES) through a White Paper from the European Commission, on European Governance on the 25th of July of 2001 (COM (2001) 428). It is as a new non-binding governance instrument designed to help member states to progressively develop their own policies to complement the EU action and improve the EU governance.1 “The open method of co-ordination should be a complement, rather than a replacement, for Community action.”2 This new governance method did not replace European or National legislation; it should be applied in combination with the existent legislation. The Lisbon Presidency’ conclusions defined the main objectives of the OMC; these were the following: i) fixing the guidelines and timelines for achieving the goals set by the Lisbon Strategy; ii) establishing quantitative and qualitative indicators and benchmarks tailored to the needs of the different Member States as a means of comparing best practice; iii) translating the European guidelines into national and regional policies, and iv) periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review organized as mutual learning processes.

The OMC is a soft law mechanism based on common guidelines, objectives and indicators, mutual learning processes like peer reviews and best practices, stakeholders participation, national strategies, joint evaluation of these strategies between the member states and the European Commission. With the OMC the member states voluntarily share information on their governance policies and monitor each other in their progress towards achieving the goals of the Lisbon Strategy. The OMC relies on naming and shaming the member states that are not in compliance, through peer reviews. “It relies on regular monitoring of progress to meet those targets, allowing Member States to compare their efforts and learn from the experience of others.”3

However, this flexible method has a weakness, on the one hand there is no accountability for when the member states do not perform accordingly to the guidelines; on the other hand, there are also no incentives for the member states to achieve good results. Trubek and Trubek (2005), without aiming to resolve it, discussed the debate over the “soft law”’ character of the OMC and compared it to the “hard law” Community Method.4 The authors distinguish both as follows:

The effectiveness and success of the OMC has been questioned and topic of debate due to its soft law character. Some defend that only hard law should be used opposing to the ones who defend the single use of soft law. Trubek and Trubek (2005), argued that as a result of this excluding views “(…) such framing not only cuts off much-needed empirical inquiry into relative capacity; it also deters exploration of hybrid (hard and soft) governance modes, and possible synergies between binding and non-binding mechanisms.”5

The OMC was first introduced with the European Employment Policy (while under different denomination) and due to its achievements was and still is extended to other areas, such as pensions, health and education, with some variants in the different processes (Trubek and Trubek, 2005). The achievements and impacts of the OMC on policy outcomes, although generally acknowledged, are difficult to determine and vary among the different areas.6 It can be seen as the EU way to influence national policy areas which are totally or in great part a responsibility of the national Governments.