The development of employment policy in the EU leading up to the European Employment Strategy 1997

The principal objective of this short paper is to provide an overview of the development of employment policy in the European Union (EU), leading up to the implementation of the European Employment Strategy (EES) in 1997. It plots the chronology of relevant developments – some of which are directly related to employment, while others are more generally aimed at the broadly defined social policy arena – with the key milestones represented by major pieces of European ‘legislation’.