The European social Union and EU legislative politics

TY - CHAP

T1 - The European social Union and EU legislative politics

AU - Martinsen, Dorte Sindbjerg

PY - 2017/1/1

Y1 - 2017/1/1

N2 - Introduction The process of integration towards a European Social Union consists of both past achievements and current deficits. It has developed on a delicate balance between on the one hand constitutive community principles of free movement and non-discrimination and on the other hand Member State jealously guarding their welfare competences. Despite national concerns, EU social integration has occurred. Primary and secondary social legislation has been adopted through the years, building up a Community social dimension with coordination of social security across borders, equal pay and treatment between gender, health, and safety at the work place, employment law, regulation regarding insolvency, the posting of workers, the social dialogue, etc. In addition, the open methods of coordination address a wider range of social issues, however, without being binding on the Member States. On the other hand, European integration challenges social protection. The more recent economic governance of the European Union constrains national welfare policies. Convergence criteria, the stability and growth pact, and the European Semester strain contemporary social and fiscal policies in the Member States. The crises and austerity measures work severely against social policies both at the European and national level as various contributions in this volume demonstrate. The current movement towards a European Social Union thus consists of fragmented and contradictory dynamics, which on balance have negative implications for welfare policies. Such implications may be severe indeed. Ferrera compares nowadays socioeconomic challenges with the ones faced 100 years ago, where local social communities were dissolved and replaced by national standards. Ferrera argues that it's the same kind of economic fusion we see today, and it requires pan-European responses in order to prevent social conflicts. As was the case one hundred years ago at the domestic level, the Europeanisation (‘fusion’) of national markets through freedom of movement and competition rules is (already has been) a tremendous trigger for growth and job creation in the EU's economy, enhancing life chances and welfare for European citizens. But it is also a source of social and spatial disruptions. Again economic ‘fusion’ requires the introduction of some common social standards, rights and obligations through a socially friendly institutional re-articulation of the novel Europeanised space of interaction. Such a social space of interaction appears to have a long way to go.

AB - Introduction The process of integration towards a European Social Union consists of both past achievements and current deficits. It has developed on a delicate balance between on the one hand constitutive community principles of free movement and non-discrimination and on the other hand Member State jealously guarding their welfare competences. Despite national concerns, EU social integration has occurred. Primary and secondary social legislation has been adopted through the years, building up a Community social dimension with coordination of social security across borders, equal pay and treatment between gender, health, and safety at the work place, employment law, regulation regarding insolvency, the posting of workers, the social dialogue, etc. In addition, the open methods of coordination address a wider range of social issues, however, without being binding on the Member States. On the other hand, European integration challenges social protection. The more recent economic governance of the European Union constrains national welfare policies. Convergence criteria, the stability and growth pact, and the European Semester strain contemporary social and fiscal policies in the Member States. The crises and austerity measures work severely against social policies both at the European and national level as various contributions in this volume demonstrate. The current movement towards a European Social Union thus consists of fragmented and contradictory dynamics, which on balance have negative implications for welfare policies. Such implications may be severe indeed. Ferrera compares nowadays socioeconomic challenges with the ones faced 100 years ago, where local social communities were dissolved and replaced by national standards. Ferrera argues that it's the same kind of economic fusion we see today, and it requires pan-European responses in order to prevent social conflicts. As was the case one hundred years ago at the domestic level, the Europeanisation (‘fusion’) of national markets through freedom of movement and competition rules is (already has been) a tremendous trigger for growth and job creation in the EU's economy, enhancing life chances and welfare for European citizens. But it is also a source of social and spatial disruptions. Again economic ‘fusion’ requires the introduction of some common social standards, rights and obligations through a socially friendly institutional re-articulation of the novel Europeanised space of interaction. Such a social space of interaction appears to have a long way to go.

M3 - Book chapter

SP - 459

EP - 476

BT - A European social union after the crisis

A2 - Vandenbroucke, Frank

A2 - Barnard, Cathrine

A2 - de Baere , Geert

PB - Cambridge University Press

ER -