Authors Iain Begg | Gabriel Glöckler | Anke Hassel ... - The Europaeum

of the EU in social matters have been reinforced by the Lisbon Treaty
(article 3.3.1. and the new horizontal clause in art. 9 TFEU); that political
initiatives and programmes give concrete shape to this legal framework;
and(...) that this should be enough: in the future, “(…) the essential
decisions in social policy must be made by the German legislative bodies
on their own responsibility. In particular the securing of the individual’s
livelihood (…) must remain a primary task of the member states (…).
This corresponds to the legally and factually limited possibilities of the
European Union for shaping structures of a social state”.
But policies, not Treaties can address today’s EU challenges: beyond these
constitutional limits, any discussion on the future of Social Europe should
take into account three obstacles, which make consensus on policy
particularly difficult and impose a limit to the social role of the EU.
The first obstacle stems from the very nature of social policy. Forging a
European approach on, say, energy security requires an analysis of
complex economic realities and technical issues, a debate about common
goals and a difficult compromise between national interests. Social Europe
requires all of that – and still must make room for the expression of strong
personal and cultural values, for redistribution and its vested interests,
for ideology and political belief. Social policies, national or European, are
about politics and well-being: their inherent subjectivity and political
nature should not be underestimated.
The second obstacle that makes Social Europe so elusive is that, on the
one hand, social change is mostly internally driven and follows the patterns
of different European welfare regimes; and on the other hand, the crisis
and globalisation increase the demand for meaningful EU and international
cooperation. For all the emphasis on globalisation, trade openness is
neither the source of all happiness nor the cause of all evil, and the main
challenges for Social Europe are only indirectly related to globalisation:
maturing welfare provisions, low fertility and ageing, changing family
structures and technologies. Social structures are changing − yet national
social protection policies and public expenditure are still often organised
around a stable nuclear family model, ignoring the impact of immigration,
new family types, female unpaid work or life-long learning needs. The
response of national governments and international organisations to the
crisis has fallen short of expectations, not least because nation states
remain the dominant players even as governments steadily lose control
over information flows, technology, migratory patterns and indeed
financial transactions. While EU achievements have been mostly internal,
Chapter 7 – Xavier Prats-Monné 105