The Lisbon Strategy provides the appropriate blueprint for progress. The responsibility for its implementation, however, lies with governments, parliaments and social partners. The Governing Council strongly supports ongoing efforts in a number of countries to proceed with structural reforms.
One of the reasons was that, by the nineties, the baby boomers were already well integrated into the labour market. Therefore, the level of unemployment among active job seekers was low. Normally search unemployment is high whenever a 3 large cohort enters the labour market. In Germany we have a situation where early retirement very often is preceded by a period of unemployment.