Do the Stakeholders Still Matter? the Change of Reconciliation Work/Family Policies Since 2000 at the European Level

This paper will seek to investigate the extent to which all the stakeholders matter in determining the goals of EU policies. Literature shows that policies about reconciliation work/family have been emptied of their egalitarian goal since the early 2000s. This paper looks to the role of strategic actors (rather than to the potential changes of paradigms or to the weight of institutions) in that process. It will examine the hypothesis that this loss of egalitarian goal in reconciliation policies is due to a change in the power relationship between the interests of stakeholders. This paper will thus examine the actors that are and have been involved since the 2000s in the directive-making process of two main directives: the so-called “Maternity leave directive” and the “Working Time directive” that have been proposed to revision for years. This paper will investigate not only the feminists actors involved in a “velvet triangle” but also all the other stakeholders: Trade unions (ETUC), lobbies (Business Europe, EWL…) NGOs (Coface, MMM…) and institutional actors from the European Parliament, Commission and Council. In doing interviews and document analysis, it aims to determine the involvement, representations, interests and power relationships of each of them and how it has changed after the Lisboan Strategy.