"The European Social Model of Corporate Governance: Prospects for Success in an Enlarged Europe"

[Introduction]. This paper will consider the competitiveness goal of the European Union as outlined at the Council Summit in Lisbon in 2000 summarised in the statement "that no one gets left behind as it strives to become the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge -based economy." The express linking of competitiveness with employment and social policies, a cornerstone of the Lisbon agenda or strategy, presents us with an imperative to consider simultaneously the issues of economic growth, employment and social policy from a number of different perspectives. This article will focus on corporate governance and labour market regulation as perspectives that will provide us with the tools to understand where the European Union is seeking to place itself along a spectrum of potential approaches to these issues and to assess the effectiveness of the strategy. The corporate governance perspective highlights the uniquely European understanding of the proper role of Europe’s corporations in supporting achievement of these goals. Part I will proffer a definition of the European 'social model of corporate governance' as compared with other governance systems, in particular the US model, with the proviso that classification systems currently adopted by corporate governance scholars do not necessarily capture significant variations of type. Part II will consider continued development of the European policies both before and after Lisbon in 2000, with particular emphasis on the 'mid-term review' of Lisbon this year, and on evidence of an intra-institutional debate regarding the Lisbon goals. Part III will highlight the difficulties in establishing exact correlative connections or more problematically actual causative connections between both corporate governance systems, elements of the Lisbon agenda, particularly those relating to labour market regulation and economic and social outcomes. Part IV will focus on particular challenges faced in the context of the 2004 enlargement to include 10 new eastern European states. The Conclusion will follow