The European labour market and the refugees

José SIlva PENEDA Principal adviser for European Social Policy in the European Policy Strategic Centre to the President of the European Commission. The EU-28 has to face two major issues : an ageing population and a lack of investments in many sectors. The actual massive arrival of refugees seems to offer Europe the opportunity of building a real European labour market. Within Europe, there are huge differences among Member States regarding culture, tradition and language, and these are reflected in the development of different social systems, including in the organization of labour markets. One can speak about a real European Social Model only in terms of the core values at the origin of the European political and economic integration project. Those values are common to all Member States. The way those values are developed inside each Member State is quite another thing: there we find great differences as, for example,