Comparing the current rules in a given country is not enough to understand how they are used by the actors, as these rules are treated as a resource or, on the contrary, as a handicap to their interests. To appreciate how restructuring processes are taking place, their advantages and disadvantages, the results achieved, we have sought to describe in the project the outcomes of the regulatory devices related to these restructuring processes in Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden and the UK.

Understanding these outcomes, especially in our case within the context of cross fertilisation, is impossible unless we can understand and analyse the various adjustment regimes of the needs in employment and the organisation of the mobility on the labour markets of the various countries. Starting from explicit and implicit objectives of the policies implemented, such an analysis enables us to compare the ways of functioning, the rooms for manoeuvre and the potential for innovation.