Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

Democracy without demos 69
between employers associations and trade unions as well as through the cooperation
of company management and employees’ representatives. As the term suggests,
attention is geared toward the removal of existing institutions without the new
matter being recognisable for its own quality and as an element of an emerging
new form of sociation in further reaching, more strongly branched and more
differentiated networks. The term of ‘neo-voluntarism’ was introduced by Wolfgang
Streeck in order to direct attention to the more open creation of the relationship
between employers and employees and the related new formative power of capital
in its relation to work. Streeck claims that the programmes of the Social Action
groups in the 1970s and of the Social Dimension groups in the 1980s had the
goal of adding a social union to the economic union, which has approximately
the same quality as the national welfare states, but that they failed as a result of the
strong resistance on the part of the member states who were unwilling to give
up their national sovereignty. The consequence of this, he says, is a discrepancy
between the fully unfolded international economy and a limited international, but
mostly only nationally oriented social policy.
In Streeck’s view, this situation is certainly in the interest of the national
governments, since they will maintain their sovereignty as a matter of form in this
way, yet can always blame their failures on the cross-border powers of the market
which are outside their reach (Streeck 1996). This arrangement is additionally
supported by the fact that the class interest of capital has an advantage as compared
to labour’s class interest and can, therefore, impose its position much more easily.
Capital’s interest is best assisted by the liberalisation and deregulation of markets.
According to Streeck, this is achieved on a European level by the fact alone that
nothing is added to the concept of completion of the Single Market, i.e. that there
are no measures in the direction of a positive integration through a European market
regulation. Since this requires the approval of all member states, such attempts
fail if there is the veto of only a single member state. Capital, in contrast, does not
require a European organisation, since its interests come to fruition practically
on their own. Labour’s class interest takes a completely different character. It has
to aim at a European re-regulation, at a European social union, that means it
has to organise itself on a European level. Nevertheless, this attempt fails due to the
too powerful national differences. The same applies to the negotiations between
employers and trade unions. The employers can do without these negotiations,
since their interests will be achieved on their own, whilst the trade unions depend
on them and are, therefore, in a more difficult position.
There are only two, narrowly defined, areas where sophisticated European social
regulations have been attained: equality for women and the field of health and
safety at work. Three out of the ten existing directives on social policy refer to the
first area, with four covering the second. Equality for women was supported by
provisions in the Treaty of Rome, by the fact that there previously existed only a
loose anchoring in national social systems and by the civil law character of equal
opportunities. Safety at work was based on the interest in uniform safety standards
for machinery in order to allow their sale across the borders. However, outside these
restricted areas, a type of social policy is establishing itself at the Union level that