The open method of coordination (OMC): A hybrid tool of political leverage in the making

摘要: The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) was institutionalized at the Lisbon European Council in 2000 as the European Union’s (EU) solution for policy coordination. Designed for areas where European member states agree to disagree, the OMC became an alternative to hard law regulation. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 153 (2) TFEU) allows the EU to ‘adopt measures designed to encourage cooperation between Member States’ and with this mandate, the non-binding OMCs were introduced in diverse areas (such as employment, social inclusion, health, education and training, culture, youth, energy). However, the OMC process has only a legal basis in Article 148 TFEU regarding employment policy, whereas the other OMCs are based on more generic treaty authorizations for EU institutions to coordinate national policies (de Witte 2018, p. 209). Furthermore, the various OMCs …