EU regulation on employment matters - there ain't no splitting a coin in two

EU regulation on employment matters grapples with a conceptual dissection, institutionalised by the Treaty. We see an economic conception of ‘employment’ embodied in the policy objective of high-level employment. The corresponding coordination processes have been integrated under European Economic Governance. The more protective, socio-legal conception of employment has persevered in EU social legislation, viewed as providing a ‘floor of rights’. Yet, measures under Title X seem to have been divorced from and overshadowed by the
developments in the economic field. The article shows how a disparate evolution of the EU law-policy interrelationship in the economic/employment policy and the social policy spheres has consolidated the dissection of the employment concept. This causes increasing tension in the regulation of employment matters. However,
the Treaty is considered as bearing the potential of facilitating a paradigm change that might help to mitigate the tension by building on a mutually reinforcing EU law-policy relationship.