The social field constitutes the nemesis of the European Union since its creation. As the preserve of the member states, the EU is struggling to implement a real social policy. Being above all an economic union based on a single market and freedom of movement, a paradox soon appears. Indeed, this is very difficult to imagine the organisation of a market without workers’ protection. The European enlargement, bringing new member States, contributed to once again diversify the social national standards, making the various model convergence initiatives almost impossible. The risk is that trade and competition will drive down European social standards (Fernandes & Vandenbroucke, 2018) by prioritizing economy above all. Another point that raises questions is that of citizenship: since European citizenship exists, rights must be granted to it in addition to simple political participation. It is indeed necessary to ally free movement of people with internal social cohesion of welfare States. The social field thus appears to be lacking and, consequently, an important issue of European policy to consider. The 7th and 8th of May, the Porto Summit was held, gathering the European Heads of States, the European institutions and the Representatives of the civil society in order to reinforce their commitment in the common social base implementation. Putting the European social question back on the agenda in a context where Great Britain – a powerful brake on social policies as we shall see – has left the Union.
It seems important, then, to know which social model is being discussed in the European Union, before even looking at the obstacles or opportunities influencing its implementation. This will thus suggests an historical perspective of the social field in Europe before highlighting the divergent national preferences in this domain. This paper will also explore whether the current context may influence the community social policies’ orientations.
The slow emergence of a social citizenship
European social policy has its origins in the ECSC institutions, as early as the 1950s. Indeed, in 1957, the European Social Fund (ESF) provided for conversion and training in specific areas: coal and steel, which were at the center of European concerns to preserve peace, being the required raw materials to build military gear. But the coal mines closed, so the ESF had to be redesigned in 1988. Its scope was thus generalized, financing resumption of studies, retraining bonus in order clearly to seek full employment. The ESF was fuelled by part of the European budget and national retraining bonus budgets. The next year, the Social Charter was created in order to compensate for the absence of social issues in the Single Act of 1986. The United Kingdom, under the Thatcher’s monetarist yoke, was a great break to the emergence of the social in the EU. This reflects a broader problem related to the place of state sovereignty in the governance of the Union. Indeed, welfare is an area in which states are already acting at the national level and which they consider a prerogative, as this area has a strong electoral value. In addition, there is no specific budget for welfare at a European level. With this lack of political will, the charter did not reach its potential (Harris, 1992) and is content to give general indications without precise injunctions such as equality between men and women, improvement of working conditions, protection of children, quality of life for pensioners etc. The scope of this European social charter is thus to be relativized, much more symbolic than effective, the European social rights finding another entry point through the freedom of movement of the single market.
The provision of European social rights is indeed highly territorialised (Cornelissen, 1996). The right to free movement is thus crucial giving EU citizens the right to freely enter the territory of another Member-State. From the moment the European citizen works or resides in another European State, it may pretend to social benefits, but one can notice that social rights are largely limited to workers and are dependent for the first five years of residence (Bruzelius et al., 2017). This consensual basic right linked to the single market is based on two founding principles: portability and a common base. The principle of portability means that when changing country, the European citizen keeps at least the social coverage he had in his country of origin. This does not mean that they cannot have more benefits, but they cannot have less, which has been reinforced in 1996. By common social base, we mean the homogenization of social rights in Europe so that Europe has a common minimum. The Food Distribution Programme for the Most Depraved Persons of the Community in 1987 follows this path by redistributing the surplus of the common agricultural policy (CAP) to the neediest through national food aid channels. But after 2003, this surplus does not exist anymore and in 2014, the Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived (FEAD) is created. This fund will endorse a contribution from the European budget to the Member States so that they can use these funds as they see fit in the social field, at a national level. In this case, States keep their sovereignty which is exactly what they wanted. For the period 2014-2020, an amount of €3.8 billion was devoted to it which represent only a droplet (0,3% of the total budget), and the member States must co-financing at least 15% of their national social programme concerned by the FEAD.
As we have seen, the gradual implementation of a socially oriented policy has been painstaking and delayed. The EU toil to develop adequate policies with the asymmetries between all member States and to correct the market on the supra-State level (Offe, 1998). And even if the Union has the capacity to act in the field of employment aid, it does not have the competence to harmonize social policies between the Member States, which is a shared competence as stated in Article 3 and 4 of the TFEU. But the EU does have the means to act, granting its policies and social rights to European citizenship, which is embodied by the notion of Social Citizenship. But which shape does it takes?
Which European social model?
European social citizenship is observable since the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 which focus on two points: first, coupling work with welfare (Soysal, 2012) as in the origins of welfare States when workers were considered as “good citizens”. The value of employment became central at this period, and work is a marker of the individual social position in the labour market (Gluckmann, 2005). Secondly, the weakening of the link between social justice and social cohesion, reposing essentially on an individual citizen moralized and incentivized (Soysal, ibid). Previously, it was the economic security given by States that equalized social opportunities, increasing social cohesion. Today, even if it is a European objective through for example the territorial cohesion, the link with social justice has faded.
According to Thomas Faist (2001), the concept of social citizenship can be approached from 3 different perspectives: residual, post-national and nested social citizenship. A residual approach would mean an EU-wide citizenship reducing de facto the social rights of citizens emanating from their Member State of residence, and thus does not fit to our subject. A post-national perspective supposes a convergence of the social rights assured by a strong supra-national State as the EU could embody. But as explained above, the harmonisation of social rights is impossible in view of the lack of EU competence in this area. The nested social membership states that membership of the EU depends on an “interactive system of policies and social rights” (ibid) between different levels: sub-national, national, supra-national etc. This supposes the acquisition of few new rights at a supra-national level connected with old ones and to adapt ancient institutions/policies in the welfare States. This model seems suitable to an analysis including the intergovernmental and supranational dynamics of the EU. Far from having only supranational social dominance or full social sovereignty of States, social policies and rights are embedded in a complex web of interdependencies between different levels of governance. In this vision, the supranational level makes it possible to obtain certain new rights without suppressing pre-existing national situations but, on the contrary, to improve them.
To put all these theories in practice, the Gothenburg Summit was held in 2017 by the President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to “promote fair jobs and growth in Europe” (europa.eu). This summit was the culmination of a European Pillar of Social Rights reaffirming twenty social rights and principles concerning the equal opportunities and access to labour market, fair working conditions and social protection and inclusion. These twenty points must guide and orient future European social policies. The Action Plan linked to this Pillar gets down deploying the full “EU governance arsenal” (Garben, 2019): regulations, directives, recommendations, communications, new institutions, funding actions and country-specific recommendations. But this Pillar does not change the substance of the functioning of the European social model. In that it is always dependent on the citizenship that allows to reach the rights in question, and that these rights are considered through the prism of the economy. The most important decisions are still taken in the internal market and economic governance (ibid). There is a permanent clash between social and economic values, compromises and advances are overwhelmingly in favor of the market, rather than the welfare.
Is Porto Summit a success? The end of the ordoliberalism
This clash between economy and social disrupts some members of the EU who would like to see a strong social supra-State emerge. This is the case of France with, to use Esping-Andersen’s typology of the welfare State, its conservative-corporatist or Bismarckian model i.e. a compulsory social insurance generalized which relies on salaried work (Merriem, 2006). France and Mediterranean States are always asking for more social protection from Europe, and on the other hand, the Nordic countries oppose it by defending national free will. One of the strongest opponents of a more social Europe is Germany, on which the European Union social model is the most aligned. Indeed, The European vision of social protection is very close to German ordoliberalism. This latter consists in a strong State as the locus of liberal governance and where economic freedoms derive from political authority (Bonefeld, 2012). And for good reason, this paradigm aims to secure the sociological and ethical preconditions of free markets (ibid) which is the first raison d’être of the European Union. In other words, it is a state-centric neo-liberalism where the principles of competition and free market governance are fundamental. The European model is therefore very different from the one demanded by the Mediterranean states, which are hoping for a larger social state. Indeed, recently, eleven European countries signed a joint statement warning against too far-reaching labor market and social policy intervention (Deutsche Welle, 2021). This statement includes obviously the so-called Frugal Four (Austria, Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden), which perfectly embodies the oppositions within the EU itself, which makes the adoption of real univocal social orientations complex.
It was therefore in vain that the French president hoped on May 7 for a “convergence towards our [French] standards” (Laye, 2021). On that date, European heads of State, institutions, social partners and associations met at the Porto summit, with the ambition of defining the European social floor -as mentioned earlier- for the coming years. In March, the European Commission President Ursula Van der Leyen set out 3 objectives in the Action Plan to be achieved by Social Europe:
- First, achieve an employment rate of 78% for the active population aged 20 to 64 by 2030. This goal is especially important because it follows the global pandemic that has resulted in many job losses.
- Secondly, training provided for at least 60% of working-age adults each year, a goal that seems particularly hard to achieve knowing that in 2016, this rate was only 37%.
- Finally, reduce at least by 15 million the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. In 2019, 91 million persons were concerned by such risks in the Union.
So did the Porto Summit progress in these fields? This is hard to say, the summit having taken an atypical turn. Indeed, the parties discussed the lifting of patents on vaccines, as the EU had assumed responsibility for fighting the pandemic during the crisis. Fighting against the virus appears to be a way to fight against social exclusion and job loss. In a second phase, the summit even evolved into inviting India into negotiations for what has become a genuine EU-India summit.
The Porto Summit did, however, allow the Council -and therefore the Heads of State- to endorse the Commission’s Action Plan set out in March, which is a major step forward and constitutes an important first step in its implementation, as expected by the Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa at the beginning of the event (Euronews, 2021). Indeed, the recognition of the three axes of the commission exposed above is the main progress to retain from this summit. This latter was also an opportunity to make commitments on improving access to employment for young people hardly hit by the Covid 19 crisis, as well as on reducing gender inequality through various projects that are still in embryo at this time.
But do these concrete advances reflect a paradigm shift, or even the emergence, at last, of a true Social Europe? This is undoubtedly a major change, via the abandonment of austerity and budget control at all costs (Laye, ibid). The pandemic has probably shed new light on social problems that were exacerbated during the crisis, giving the opportunity for some social projects to exist. One can see in this new direction a move away, relative of course, from the traditional dominant ordoliberalism. However, this deviation is only partial, and is far to draw near the French interventionist model for example. Indeed, the EU remains limited by its competences and still has many obstacles to stronger social policies, as evidenced by the statement signed by the Nordic countries mentioned above. One of the topics particularly awaited during this summit was the establishment of a common minimum wage homogenized throughout the European Union thereby creating a common European labor market, proposed by the Commission for 6 months now, and remained a dead letter since. The summit did not in any way reconcile the 27 on this subject, proving once again the limits of European social will. More than a real paradigm shift, it is rather a shift from the Porto Summit to a compromise that can bring all parties together. Although the planned social advances are important, we cannot seriously talk about a European social revolution that some people were expecting.
What is clear is the lack of unity of the member states in this area. The southern states are calling for more social protection at the European level, while the north is firmly opposed. This should therefore be one of the main projects for any evolution in terms of rights or social policies: create a transparent and mediatised forum for dialogue following the example of the previous Gothenburg and Porto summits, bringing together the different actors of the social world, but on a more frequent and routine basis in order to commit the States to this work, and equipped with control mechanisms. This is a major precondition for the appearance of a Social Europe to be ambitious and to live up to its commitments, and also for the strengthening of the social rights base. The symbolic advances of recent times are certainly important, but it is still too early to assess their impact or even witness their real implementation. In any case, we can only welcome the Commission’s efforts to try to make this project a reality, which can only be in the interest of European citizens.
Bibliography
Bonefeld, W. 2012. Freedom and the Strong State: on German Ordoliberalism. New Political Economy, volume 17 (5).
Bruzelius et al. 2017. Stratified Social Rights Limiting EU Citizenship. Journal on Common Market Studies, volume 55 (6).
Cornelissen, R. 1996. The Principle of Territoriality and the Community Regulations on Social Security. Common Market Law Review, volume 33 (3).
Deutsche Welle, 2021 May 7. EU leaders to talk over social strategy in Porto summit. Deutsche Welle. Available at: https://p.dw.com/p/3t551.
Euronews, 2021 May 6. L’avenir de l’Europe sociale se décide à Porto. Euronews. Available at : https://fr.euronews.com/embed/1497202
Faist, T. 2001. Social Citizenship in the European Union: Nested Membership. Journal of Common Market Studies, volume 39 (1), p 37-58.
Fernandes, S & Vandenbroucke, F. 2018. Social Europe : from slogan to reality. Fondation Robert Schuman, policy paper, European issues n°487.
Garben, S. 2019. The European Pillar of Social Rights: An Assessment of its Meaning and Significance. Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, volume 21 (2019), p 101-127.
Glucksmann, M. 2005. Shifting Boundaries and Interconnections: Extending the Total Social Organization of Labour. Sociological Review, volume 53 (2), p 19-36.
Harris, D. J. 1992. A Fresh Impetus for the European Social Charter. International & Comparative Law Quarterly.
Laye, S. 2021 May 11. « L’Union Européenne poursuit son sommeil social ». Le Figaro Tribune, FigaroVox.
Merriem, F-X. 2006. Les different types de l’Etat-providence. Cahiers français n°330.
Offe, C. 1998. Demokratie und Wohlfahrtsstaat: Eine europaïsche Regimeform unter dem Stress der europaïschen Integration. Internationale Wirtshaft, nationale Demokratie. Herausforderungen für die Demokratietheorie.
Soysal, Y. N. 2012. Citizenship, immigration, and the European social project: rights and obligations of individuality. The British Journal of Sociology, volume 63 (1).
By Mahmoud Refaat: The European Institute for International Law and International Relations
