European Union
Social Policy
European Union Policy-Making
‘2019 Crisis’ Special Session
frama.link/eusp-2019
Overview
● Pensions (‘delayed income’)
and other old-age cash transfers (long-term care)
● Unemployment benefits (also an income transfer)
and protection against job-based discrimination
● Sickness benefits (cash transfer + service economy)
incl. catastrophic healthcare expenditure, paid leave
● Family benefits
incl. parental leave
● Poverty relief (minima sociaux)
The Community and the Member States, having in mind
fundamental social rights such as those set out in the
European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961
and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental
Social Rights of Workers, shall have as their objectives the
promotion of employment, improved living and working
conditions, so as to make possible their harmonisation
while the improvement is being maintained, proper social
protection, dialogue between management and labour, the
development of human resources with a view to lasting high
employment and the combating of exclusion.
Treaty establishing the European Community 2002, art. 136
The Community and the Member States, having in mind
fundamental social rights such as those set out in the
European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961
and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental
Social Rights of Workers, shall have as their objectives the
promotion of employment, improved living and working
conditions, so as to make possible their harmonisation
while the improvement is being maintained, proper social
protection, dialogue between management and labour, the
development of human resources with a view to lasting high
employment and the combating of exclusion.
Treaty establishing the European Community 2002, art. 136
The Community and the Member States, having in mind
fundamental social rights such as those set out in the
European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961
and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental
Social Rights of Workers, shall have as their objectives the
promotion of employment, improved living and working
conditions, so as to make possible their harmonisation
while the improvement is being maintained, proper social
protection, dialogue between management and labour, the
development of human resources with a view to lasting high
employment and the combating of exclusion.
Treaty establishing the European Community 2002, art. 136
Research questions
1. Extent of EU agency
vs. National welfare-state mandates (Esping-Andersen)
2. Type of ‘European Social Model’
vs. National market protection mechanisms (Polanyi)
Both affect the scope (who gets what, when and how) of
what have historically been state-based, class-based,
redistributive policies
Interested stakeholders
● EU-level institutional triangle
Commission, Council (Member States), Parliament
N.B. All have highly heterogeneous preferences
● EU-level non-governmental stakeholders
Trade unions (syndicats)
Employers and business interests (patronat)
‘Social NGOs’ (e.g. gender equality groups)
EU social partners
Example EU-level ‘social NGOs’
‘Leibfried and Pierson’ view of EU social policy
1. A ‘hollow core’
i.e. No real (i.e. treaty base) mandate
2. Prominent role for courts in policy development
i.e. Europeanization via case law
3. Tight coupling to market-making processes
i.e. Market-enabling policy orientation
‘Hollow core’ attributes
● Unlike welfare states, EU cannot raise direct funding via
taxes and social contributions
Instead, European Social Fund (ESF, 10% EU budget) and
Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund (ERDF + CF)
● Most of EU social policy is not legally binding — most
initiatives are consultative/voluntary
e.g. Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in employment,
‘social inclusion’ and health (cognitive harmonization)
‘Market-making’ orientation
● Treaty base features social policy as a way to harmonize
employment opportunities on the Single Market
e.g. removing discrimination* against migrant workers
(* pluralistically defined since Lisbon Strategy)
● Overarching logic of Single Market postulates that social
protection will follow from economic growth
this + controversial nature of EU budget expansion =
most EU social policy is regulatory (budget-neutral)
‘Court-supported’ policy development
● Community Method applied to social rights like health
and safety, gender equality (more than equal pay) and
protection against discrimination on labour market
All of those rights have received EU legal support via
unanimity or, for some of them, via QMV since SEA/1992
● Active ECJ involvement in enforcing directives predates
expanded powers of European Parliament
(whereas national social policies are likely to have
developed the opposite way)
Challenges
Crucial contentious points
● ‘Markets first’ is not a universally shared position
see e.g. ETUC’s position that ‘Social Europe’ should act as
a buffer against (not an enabler of) globalization
● Welfare states differ a lot at the (sub)national level
i.e. no agreement on how much social protection should
be granted, to whom, and how (family v. state v. market)
● Welfare provision generates high political benefits
i.e. domestic governments will want to keep it (mostly)
national to continue claiming credit for it
Welfare state differentiation
● Different initial welfare state regimes (Esping-Andersen)
Liberal (US/UK), Social-Democrat (Sweden/Nordic),
Conservative-Corporatist (FR/DE)… + Southern? Eastern?
● Internal differences between social policy sectors
e.g. Health (Bismarckian, Beveridgean) ≠ Pensions
● Important, sustained differences in expenditure levels
● Reform convergence, e.g. dualization (insider/outsider)
of labour market and universalization of health coverage
Two overlapping crises, c. 1980s—today
● Permanent austerity, a.k.a. the Welfare State Crisis
Stagflation, rising expenditure and dependency ratios
→ Cost containment, privatization/marketization,
and rarely, retrenchment
● Aggravated austerity under the Global Fiscal Crisis
→ Six-Pack and Two-Pack (SGP reforms, 2011 and 2013)
→ Fiscal Compact (a.k.a. TSCG, non-EU treaty, 2012)
→ European Semester and CSRs, since 2011
European Semester (Verdun and Zeitlin)
● Builds on previous coordination instruments
i.e. Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), Broad Economic
Policy Guidelines (BEPGs), European Employment
Strategy (EES), Lisbon Strategy, Social Open Method of
Coordination (OMC)
● Increased severity of corrective measures
i.e. harsher sanctions within Excessive Deficit Procedure
(EDP), new Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP),
sanctions for non-compliance with CSRs, Reverse QMV
Social CSRs (Copeland and Daly)
The problem and its causes
● Market-correcting measures are being slashed right
when higher and unemployment and lower labour
profitability would justify them more
(And since those resources are not evenly distributed,
they result in a Euroclash-style electoral situation.)
● Why this is happening might be traced to the partisan
composition of the Commission and to “concentration of
intergovernmental bargaining power in the hands of the
German government” (Graziano and Hartlapp)
Conclusions
Policy takeaways
● The EU’s ‘hollow core’ (Leibfried and Pierson) makes it a
regulatory state (Majone) that cannot create extensive
market-correcting social policies
● On the other hand, its ‘negative integration’ powers are
immense (internal market four freedoms), which leads to
highly visible constitutional asymmetry (Scharpf)
● The result is input/output disjunction (Easton/Scharpf):
demands for social protection are not being matched by
the inclusion of ‘austerity buffers’ in the EU policy mix
Practical takeaways
● There is a vast academic literature on welfare state
regimes, social policies and the European Social Model
Employers (EU institutions or NGOs) will expect that you
know some of it, and know how to navigate it if need be
● Official statistics and (e.g. expenditure) data will come
mostly from Eurostat and from the OECD
You will also be expected to know how to navigate that,
and how to interpret it (e.g. % of GDP measures)
Personal recommendations
● Go and explore the main policy platforms to understand
common arguments and mental models of stakeholders
e.g. for EU health policy: European Health Forum Gastein
(EHFG) and European Public Health Alliance (EPHA)
● Self-teach yourself the basic applied economics of the
domain of interest (employment, pensions, health…)
Basically, take any handbook on the domain, and learn
how the basic economic indicators and models work
References / Websites
Crespy, Welfare Markets in Europe. The Democratic Challenge
of European Integration (2016)
Daly, “Social Policy and European Union Politics” (2019)
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Ferrera, The Boundaries of Welfare. European Integration
and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection (2005)
Greer et al., Everything You Always Wanted to Know about
European Union Health Policies but Were Afraid to Ask (2019)
Observatoire Social Européen
