The growing conflict between European uniformity and national flexibility : the case of danish flexicurity and European harmonisation of working condition

In recent years the Danish flexicurity model has attracted attention from the European Union as a successful way of combining a flexible labour law regime with generous social protection of employees and an active labour market policy. However, the Danish model has itself come under pressure from ever increasing EU harmonisation of working conditions.The growing conflict between European uniformity and national flexibility examines the pressure put on the flexible Danish labour law system by EU labour law directives and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The analysis highlights the increasing tension between, on the one hand, the flexibility that the directives aim to allow individual Member States and, on the other hand, the uniform interpretation and application of the principles of which the CJEU is an exponent.