Europeanization and the Varying Responses in Collective Skill Systems

Europeanization elicits varying responses in collective skill systems, which are still mainly governed in national contexts and determined primarily by collaboration and conflicts within them. This chapter explores the impact of European developments, particularly the European Union (EU), on institutional change in vocational training regimes. The aim is twofold: first, to investigate the impact of the European level on national institutions responsible for skill formation; and second, to explore similar challenges but varying responses to European initiatives of the collective skill systems analyzed in this book. To what extent and in which directions are Europe-wide processes affecting the collective skill systems in Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland? This question is important because these systems share certain characteristics but differ in their institutionalization pathways and the degree to which the influence of the EU has grown in education and training. To answer this question, we investigate the two levels and their interaction in countries in which conflicts over such forms of Europeanization have ensued – Germany and Switzerland – as weIl as those in which consensus has facilitated Europeanization – Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands.