Abstract
The paper firstly aims to analyse the historic evolution of European social policy, which has been both significant and incoherent at the same time. Thanks to this evolution, the European Union (EU) was able to build up its own labour and social law system, based on the huge increase in legal competences within the treaties and many directives, capable of partially harmonising the respective legal systems of the Member States (MS). Nevertheless, a high level of incoherence has always been a characteristic of European labour and social law, for different reasons (shared competences, exclusion from EU competences of collective labour law, a high degree of flexibility, etc.), that has made the harmonisation process very weak.
This weakness—aggravated by the enlargement to include the Central and Eastern countries—was probably one of the reasons why European authorities decided to deal with the labour and social side of the recent economic and financial crisis in a way which has completely abandoned harmonisation, pushing through the adoption of national reforms by some Southern MS that were severe and generally perceived as a disintegrative element within the EU context. Against this background, the paper secondly tries to assess the impact of the economic and financial crisis and these national reforms on the future of European social policy, underlining that it could be very negative (de facto leading to the marginalisation of the harmonisation process) but also considering the recent efforts made by the European Commission to relaunch this policy through the so-called European Pillar of Social Rights.
This assessment will be conducted taking into account that the social dimension of the EU is currently highly contested, even with regard to one of the most important successes of European social policy, i.e. the regulation of free movement of workers (more precisely: of persons), considered in many countries as encouraging “social tourism”.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
The text of the Proclamation is available at the following website: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/deeper-and-fairer-economic-and-monetary-union/european-pillar-social-rights_en.
References
Ales, E. (2010). Lo sviluppo della dimensione sociale comunitaria: un’analisi “genealogica”. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del Lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 131–170). Torino: UTET.
Barnard, C. (2012). EU employment law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borzaga, M. (2016). Die Einflüsse des “deutschen Modells” auf die jüngsten Arbeitsmarktreformen in Italien. In U. Faber, K. Feldhoff, K. Nebe, K. Schmidt, & U. Waßer (Eds.), Gesellschaftliche Bewegungen – Recht unter Beobachtung und in Aktion (pp. 819–838). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Boscati, A., & Ferrario, S. (2010). Il lavoro a tempo parziale. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del Lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 537–570). Torino: UTET.
Carinci, F. (2015). Origini ed evoluzione storica dell’ordinamento comunitario. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 17–38). Torino: Giappichelli.
Chieco, P. (2015). “Riforme strutturali” del mercato del lavoro e diritti fondamentali dei lavoratori nel quadro della nuova governance economica europea. Giornale di Diritto del Lavoro e di Relazioni Industriali, 3, 359–410.
Cottone, M. (2010). Il lavoro a tempo determinato. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del Lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 606–641). Torino: UTET.
Fortunato, S. (2014). Commento all’art. 153 del Trattato sul Funzionamento dell’Unione Europea. In A. Tizzano (Ed.), Trattati dell’Unione Europea (pp. 1140–1447). Milano: Giuffrè.
Fuchs, M., & Marhold, F. (2010). Europäisches Arbeitsrecht. New York: Springer.
Giubboni, S. (2008). Un certo grado di solidarietà. Libera circolazione delle persone e accesso al welfare nella giurisprudenza della Corte di giustizia delle Comunità europee (WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”. INT – 62/2008, pp. 1–42).
Giubboni, S. (2013). Cittadinanza, lavoro e diritti sociali nella crisi europea (WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”. INT – 100/2013, pp. 1–31).
Giubboni, S. (2016). Il diritto del lavoro nella crisi europea (a proposito di un recente volume) (WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”. INT – 126/2016, pp. 1–24).
Kocher, E. (2016). Europäisches Arbeitsrecht. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Lai, M. (2010). Salute e sicurezza sul lavoro. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del Lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 657–677). Torino: UTET.
Montanari, A., & Girelli, N. (2015). Parità di trattamento e divieto di discriminazione. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 187–215). Torino: Giappichelli.
Nappi, S. (2010). La libera circolazione dei lavoratori subordinati. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del Lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 251–287). Torino: UTET.
Pizzoferrato, A. (2015a). La sicurezza sociale. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 342–364). Torino: Giappichelli.
Pizzoferrato, A. (2015b). La politica sociale europea. In F. Carinci & A. Pizzoferrato (Eds.), Diritto del lavoro dell’Unione Europea (pp. 101–116). Torino: Giappichelli.
Roccella, M., & Treu, T. (2012). Diritto del lavoro dell’Unione Europea. Padova: CEDAM.
Strazzari, D. (2016). Dall’unità alla frantumazione: Corte di giustizia e accesso alle prestazioni sociali del cittadino dell’UE. Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo, 4, 883–914.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Borzaga, M. (2019). More or Less “Social Europe”? The Challenges of European Social Policy After the Enlargement to Include Central and Eastern Countries and the Recent Economic and Financial Crisis. In: Antoniolli, L., Bonatti, L., Ruzza, C. (eds) Highs and Lows of European Integration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93626-0_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93626-0_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93625-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-93626-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)