Europe on the Way to a Social Union?
Value Added Europe – Steps on the Way to a Social Union
Competing positions to further delegate social policy to the EU are shaped by institutional and distribution policy effects of European integration: these effects are determined by the different welfare state models and a country’s respective position as net contributor or net recipient of substantive social policy in the EU and EU funds in general.
There is no prospect of a genuine European community based on solidarity with a developed substantive European social policy and, at the same time, a commitment to redistribution. But enhancement of the social dimension in Europe does not necessarily have to take place through Europe. Protecting and increasing the scope of national social policy is one way of bringing about more equity and efficiency in the EU. The formation of Europe’s social dimension through the harmonisation of national social policy institutions is ruled out by the treaties in principle. But rather the different national paths constitute a source of strength in the EU. Not harmonisation as such, but the homogenisation of welfare outcomes must therefore be the goal of European social policy. All three levels of social policy presented here can contribute to this in their own way. However, this is conditional upon constitutional and discursive parity for both the promotion and the social embedding of the market in the European Union. To that extent the level of European governance entails a potential added value for the European social dimension.
European social policy exists in a number of areas; nevertheless, Europe is often regarded as a purely economic community suspected of being a Trojan horse for neoliberal globalisation processes. To that extent the EU’s social agenda is a first step in the right direction; however, a great deal more thought must be given to a genuine reorganisation of the European social dimension, in order to be able to counter effectively the difficulties and dilemmas of integration processes and therefore also the doubts of Europeans.
