Peter Kenyon releases the vapourware
Social Europe: From Vision to Vigour by Björn Hacker published by Foundation for Progressive European Studies
Thin pocket-sized booklets covering policy are handy. This is just one example of a series of primers being published by the Foundation for Progressive European Studies (FPES) now led by László Andor, a Hungarian economist and former EC Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and inclusion.
European Social Policy has a chequered history. Recognised as far back as 1950 by EU founding father Robert Schuman according to the booklet’s author, Björn Hacker, professor of European economic policy in Berlin. But it does not feature in a treaty. Two prominent figures sought to promote it – former German chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1970s, and former EU Commission President and French Finance Minister Jacques Delors in the 1980s. Delors riled UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who saw it as a socialist “plot” and the rest in one sense is history. But Hacker’s purpose is to examine each key facet of social policy to highlight what has, hasn’t and could be achieved. Chapter 2 sets out the lines of conflict in social affairs, Chapter 3 covers modes and actors in social policy, Chapter 4 five stages of development (not always forward), and Chapter 5 spells out the challenges leading to conclusions.
The lines of conflict arising from the pressures of economic integration highlighted in Chapter 2 illustrate the difficulties of formulating European Social Policy. Hacker lists
(1) the pluralism of welfare pathways;
(2) Member States’ demand to keep social policies in national sovereignty and the requirement of economic integration to enable more common social regulation;
(3) fast-forward economic integration driven by constitutional specifications and their interpretation and only marginal steps forward in social integration;
(4) neoliberal dogma on the “free play” of the Single Market forces and freedoms and the “Keynesian” approach aimed at actively correcting and shaping European markets;
(5) social and spatial inequalities and disparities and insufficient political efforts at EU social and territorial cohesion, growing with each economic crisis.
In his view the prospects are worsening. It could be argued that is evident from Brexit and voting for the European Parliament – but that facet is outside the scope of this booklet.