Europe on the Way to a Social Union?
The European Commission’s ‘Renewed Social Agenda’, published at the beginning of July 2008, bears the auspicious subtitle ‘Opportunities, Access and Solidarity in 21st Century Europe’. The Agenda outlines a framework for European social policy in the areas of employment and social affairs, education and youth, health care and the information society.
However, since social policy remains the responsibility of the member states, the Commission avoids defining its policy proposals as such. At the same time, the EU sees itself in an ‘ideal position’ to pursue social policies in reaction to socio-economic change resulting from technological development and globalisation. Contemporary social policy should be ‘cross-cutting and multidimensional’, both conceptually and with regard to implementation.
In the Commission’s view, finding the right mixture of European and national decision-making is the key to a fair and efficient social policy for the twenty-first century. Thus, the Commission rightly poses the question of whether there might be scope for cross-sectoral measures at EU level and whether the instruments available to the EU ‘to support and supplement the member states should be reviewed’. This question delves deep into the EU’s current structure and touches upon its relationship with the member states. This explains the number of critical and dismissive reactions to the Social Agenda. While some believe that the Agenda does not go far enough, others criticise it for gratuitously increasing the role of the EU. No doubt, the EU’s social dimension will continue to be the subject of much political infighting.
What is EU Social Policy?
In EU member states, social policy is intended to benefit the disadvantaged, equalising chances in life and living standards within society. This includes conferring an equal start in life through education policy, but also equalising the safety nets for the main risks of life, such as illness and unemployment. On the other hand, social policy is also a potential growth factor for the national economy. Still, the scope of market intervention varies.
Then there is a second problem: in the member states the political aims of market creation and market regulation are generally on an equal footing in legal terms. ‘Market creation’ or ‘market enabling’ refers to the activities of private actors in the market, which should be protected by the state. ‘Market regulation’, in contrast, implies regulatory intervention in markets, which of course has to be justified.
It is this relationship that clearly distinguishes member states from the EU. At the EU level, emphasis on the internal market and its competition principles is closely linked to the Union’s limited social powers. Although the Community’s competence in social policy has increased, particularly since the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, the parallelism of European responsibility and European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings – for example protection in the workplace – and national powers (for example, minimum wages) makes it difficult to reach compromises in the European multi-level governance system.
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