The EU’s concept of activation for young people: towards a new social contract? Eduardo Crespo and Amparo Serrano Pascual 1. Introduction The concept of activation covers a wide range of employment measures with very different approaches and emphases that are determined by the cultural and political traditions of each country, or even of the various regions within a country (Barbier 2000; Lødemel and Trickey 2001). However, despite the existence of these socially determined differences, all the measures have in common the fact that they are based on a new definition of the relationship between rights and responsibilities, in other words a new social contract. They all share the principle that the main responsibility for dealing with unemployment lies with the individual. In this context, responsibility is not simply taken to mean that the causes of unemployment are individual (that is, blame), but also in terms of making the individual responsible for implementing strategies to find work. What this amounts to is a redefinition of the established relationship between individual and society. The institutionalisation of social welfare through the welfare state was based on an understanding of unemployment as a threat to society, and it was therefore assumed that it was society’s duty to tackle this threat. It should be pointed out that one of the cornerstones of the prevailing model of social welfare and production in our society at the time was the principle of advance planning and regulation. Risk was seen as a burden which needed to be tackled through institutionally provided means. Are activation models converging in Europe? 13