Abstract
The European Union (EU) has never been a ‘social union’ in the sense that the eurozone, for example, is a monetary union. Nevertheless, national sovereignty over social and labour market policies has always been exercised under the constraint of external pressures for economic competitiveness. As a consequence, any pan-European social solidarity has been difficult to achieve as social and labour market policies have become a factor of national economic competitiveness. As a result, regime competition theories predicted a race to the bottom in social and workplace protections. This chapter will argue that, whereas there is little evidence for this race to the bottom in times of economic growth, the 2007–08 financial crisis kickstarted it, aggravating tensions arising from constrained sovereign state control of social and labour market policies on the one hand and notions of European social solidarity on the other, with potentially dire consequences for the whole European project.
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Parsons, N. (2012). Social and Labour Market Policy: The (Re-)Emergence of Competitive Tensions. In: Hayward, J., Wurzel, R. (eds) European Disunion. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271358_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271358_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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