Abstract
Since the early days of European integration, social policies have been a particularly contentious field. This was due, to an important extent, to the combined effect of the resilience of national welfare states and the idiosyncratic nature of the integration process. It was this context that led to the development of a specific pattern of social policies at the European level, characterised by the coexistence of different methods of governance. This chapter will reflect on the European repertoire of social policies, their distinctive features and how they have evolved over time. It will end with a discussion of how Europe, de facto, influences domestic social policies, as well as the challenges facing further developments in this policy field.
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- 1.
Lange has rightly defined European social policy as a history of “good intentions, high principles and little action” (Lange 2016).
- 2.
Following articles 123-8 of the Treaty, the ESF was instituted in 1960. From the outset, the ESF had two main purposes: retraining and resettlement. On paper, the ESF created a common obligation to support and improve employment opportunities, encourage work force’s mobility and develop vocational training. Hence, the linkage between European social policies and labour market functioning was reinforced, as the main areas of the fund were yet again labour-oriented. Nevertheless, contrary to its stated purposes, fighting unemployment was not a relevant aim of the fund. The fund’s activity concentrated on promoting mobility to compensate for regional and sectoral labour shortages (e.g. from Southern Italy to Germany and France’s industrial areas). However, financial resources allocated to the fund and, overall, to social dimensions were small, namely when compared with agricultural common policy.
- 3.
In this respect, the role of the Council of Europe, which in 1961 adopted the “Social Charter”, which put additional pressure on the Community to move forward in the social areas as well, should not be neglected.
- 4.
Even though the resolution stated that the necessary resources would be provided, in particular by strengthening the ESF’ and, further on, that it was intended to speed up the implementation of the European social budget’.
- 5.
By 1973, institutional diversity alone would begin to hinder the process of harmonisation, particularly as a result of the accession of countries with institutional cultures other than the founding fathers, the United Kingdom and Ireland (liberal model) and Denmark (social-democratic model).
- 6.
Point 2 of the preamble noted “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland shall not take part in the deliberations and the adoption by the Council of Commission proposals made on the basis of this Protocol and the abovementioned Agreement”. “The opt-out procedure for the UK raised practical as well as legal questions. How realistic was it to assume that the UK representatives would not influence (whether deliberately or not) the decisions of the other 11 member states. The UK would continue to be involved in social policy decisions taken outside the Protocol.” (Kleinman 2002: 89).
- 7.
The document alleged that social policy was to play a ‘vital part’ in further integration. Accordingly, the scope of this policy field was to be widened, meaning that even though employment was to remain a top priority, other dimensions of the social question had to gain relevance. Hence, the foreword to the White Paper stressed that “the Union’s social policy cannot be second string to economic development or to the functioning of the internal market. Growth in the numbers of the poor and of the unemployed, the possible emergence of an underclass, increasing pressures on social services (e.g., unemployment and health services) and increasing criminality all drain the resources available. The financing of social security now poses major challenges for all member states. In the Union, increased confidence can come only from a reconciliation between economic growth policies and their translation into higher social development with upgraded living standards for all” (Commission 1994).
- 8.
The resort to the OMC represented simultaneously a new commitment to address employment issues at the EU level and an attempt to redefine ESP governance method through a novel approach to regulation.
- 9.
The OMC was first used with the EES (Goetschy 2016) and gained particular political relevance with the Lisbon Summit (Rodrigues 2000), where it consolidated its role as a leading governance method at the EU level—mainly as far as ESP is concerned. The OMC was then extended from employment to social exclusion (Nice Council in 2000) and, afterwards, to pensions (Stockholm in 2001), and health care (Gothenburg in 2001), not to mention other ‘OMC-like’ processes (de la Porte 2007). For a description of the various policy fields to which the OMC (or comparable processes) has been applied, see Susanna Borras and Kerstin Jacobsson (2004).
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Silva, P.A.e., Cadeiras, P. (2019). From Paris to Lisbon: The Ever-Changing European Social Policy Landscape. In: da Costa Cabral, N., Cunha Rodrigues, N. (eds) The Future of Pension Plans in the EU Internal Market. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29497-7_15
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