Social Investment as a Policy Platform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Vandenbroucke
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Consensus ◽  
The Eu

This contribution argues for a truly reciprocal social investment pact for Europe: member states should be committed to policies that respond to the need for social investment; simultaneously, member states’ efforts in this direction—notably efforts by those in a difficult budgetary context—should be supported in a tangible way. Social investment is a policy perspective that should be based on a broad consensus between people who may entertain certain disagreements regarding the level of their empirical and/or normative understanding of the social world. For that reason, the expression of an ‘overlapping consensus’ is used for delineating social investment advocacy. Data on education spending show that we are far removed from a social investment perspective at the European Union (EU) level. This underscores the fact that social investment advocates need to clearly consider the role the EU has to play in social investment progress.

Social Policy and European Union Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Daly
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Eu

Social policy has a particular character and set of associated politics in the European Union (EU) context. There is a double contestation involved: the extent of the EU’s agency in the field and the type of social policy model pursued. The former is contested because social policy is typically and traditionally a matter of national competence and the latter because the social policy model is crucial to economic and market development. Hence, social policy has both functional and political significance, and EU engagement risks member states’ capacity to control the social fate of their citizens and the associated resources, authority, and power that come with this capacity. The political contestations are at their core territorially and/or social class based; the former crystalizes how wide and extensive the EU authority should be in social policy and the latter a left/right continuum in regard to how redistributive and socially interventionist EU social policy should be. Both are the subject of a complicated politics at EU level. First, there is a diverse set of agents involved, not just member states and the “political” EU institutions (Parliament and Council) but the Commission is also an important “interested” actor. This renders institutional politics and jockeying for power typical features of social policymaking in the EU. Second, one has to break down the monolith of the EU institutions and recognize that within and among them are actors or units that favor a more left or right position on social policy. Third, actors’ positions do not necessarily align on the two types of contestation (apart perhaps from the social nongovernmental organizations and to a lesser extent employers and business interests). Some actors who favor an extensive role for social policy in general are skeptical about the role of the EU in this regard (e.g., trade unions, some social democratic parties) while others (some sectors of the Commission) wish for a more expansive EU remit in social policy but also support a version of social policy pinned tightly to market and economic functions. In this kind of context, the strongest and most consistent political thrust is toward a type of EU social policy that is most clearly oriented to enabling the Union’s economic and market-related objectives. Given this and the institutional set-up, the default position in EU social policy is for a market-making social policy orientation on the one hand and a circumscribed role for the EU in social policy on the other.

The Slow Road to the Social Investment Perspective in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.263

Political Cleavages across Nations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Union Member ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Election ◽  
European Union Member States ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Cross National

This chapter focuses on the variations in cleavage politics across the European Union member states. The analyses compare the structure of issue positions across nations to see if the set of issues defining the economic and cultural cleavages are comparable. While there is some cross-national variation, both cleavages are evident across the European Union. The social group positions on both cleavages are also broadly similar across nations. The chapter then examines the social correlates of cleavage positions to see if factors such as the economic structure or the religious composition of societies affect group alignments. The results emphasize the commonality of the basic patterns for the EU overall to the pattern in specific member states. The analyses are primarily based on the 2009 European Election Study.

scholarly journals The Slow Road to the Social Investment Perspective in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.

scholarly journals I NAZIONALISMI E L’UNITÀ EUROPEA

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Martinelli
Keyword(s):  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Supranational Institutions ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
The Eu

The essay starts with a critical analysis of the most relevant theories of nationalism in the social sciences and addresses questions such as the emergence of the nation and its ideology-nationalism-that is framed into the broader process of modernization; the intersections between the concepts of nationalism, nation and state; the ambivalent relation between nationalism and democracy; the dual historical root of European nationalism and its transformations in to-day globalized world. Then the focus of the analysis is shifted on the present state of the European Union, and more specifically on the two basic contradictions of European political integration: first, the building of a supranational, multicultural union that makes use of nation states as its bulding blocs, but pretends to get free from the connected nationalisms; second, the transfer by member states to the supranational level of growing portions of their national sovereignty without an equivalent transfer of loyalty and committment by their citizens to the supranational institutions. Finally, the author argues for an effective strategy to build a real supranational union-that is seen as the best way to face the challenges of the contemporay world- through bold reforms of the EU political architecture and the strenghtening of a European identity, a strategy that can also block the resurgence of aggressive nationalism in several EU member states.

scholarly journals The EU Charter of Rights and Brexit Effect on the Implementation of Economic and Social Rights among EU Member States

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Nirmala Pillay
Keyword(s):  
Social Consequences ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
The Eu

This article examines the extent to which the inclusion of the European Union (EU) Charter of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Treaty of Lisbon which gives legal force to socio-economic rights as well as civil and political rights,conomic will succeed in helping EU member states meet international treaty obligations to implement socio-economic rights. Will the EU’s renewed commitment to developing the social sphere, post-Brexit, be more successful and will British citizens lose out on socio-economic rights in the long term if the EU succeeds in creating a better social or public dimension? Member states of the EU that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have obligations to progressively realise economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. Progress on this has been slow and potentially made more difficult by the economic direction adopted by the EU since the 1980s. Although the EU, from the beginning, saw itself as a “social market” it struggled to embed the “social” to the same extent that it embedded the “market”. Critics argue that the economic policies of the EU and key judgements of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) successfully dis-embedded the market from its social context. Additionally, the regulatory regime of the EU developed in a direction that limited the capacity of nation states to ameliorate the consequences of market-led policies for the least advantaged. However, the Charter of Rights, which places socio-economic rights on an equal footing with civil and political rights, is a novel and bold initiative. It has stimulated debate on whether the Charter could rebalance the EU’s economic agenda by paying attention to the social consequences of predominantly market-led policies. This paper examines the potential impact of the EU Charter, in the context of member states international human rights obligations, to create an environment where member states of the EU have fewer obstacles to the “progressive realization” of ESC rights.

scholarly journals Social Dialogue in Public Sector Reflection about Hungarian and Slovenian approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zvone Vodovnik ◽  
Aniko Noemi Turi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Social Dialogue ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legislative Activities ◽  
Sustainable Economic Growth ◽  
The Eu

The process of last years expended enlargement of the European Union leads EU governmental bodies towards enacting new European documents. These documents must be considered as legal bases for making the EU the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world being capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. In the area of the EU legislation the social dialogue must be regarded as an important issue. For time being the EU documents regulate some elements of social dialogue in private sector however, the social dialogue in public sector is still outside of the EU regulation. The paper elaborates a comparative view between two Member States such as Hungary and Slovenia by exploring and analyzing EU industrial relations, and the relationship between the industrial relations of these Member States. It is evident that the EU enlargement has further increased this diversity, and the EU industrial relations in many parts distinguish from national industrial relations. This article analyses the process of the legislative activities at the EU legislative bodies, as well as in the national legislations of Hungary and Slovenia. It emphasizes also the concept of EU industrial relations and shows, which are the frames of the social dialogue in public sector of Hungary and Slovenia.

scholarly journals The rise and change of the competence strategy: Reflections on twenty-five years of skills policies in the EU

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Telling ◽  
Martino Serapioni
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Background ◽  
To Come ◽  
Union Education ◽  
The Eu

The principal aim of this article is to provide a historical overview of 25 years of competence policy in the European Union, highlighting connections between past and current initiatives and outlining possible scenarios for the decade to come. The article presents the social investment turn in social policy as the critical political background against which the emergence of a competence strategy in European Union education policy should be analysed and understood. The competence strategy, it is argued, finds its roots in a renewed attention at the European Union level for harmonising educational outputs and labour market demands. While trying to produce a schematic history of the emergence and change of the competence strategy, the article does not seek to offer strict definitions of competence itself; instead, it conveys the nebulous and context-dependent nature of the concept.

scholarly journals Przeciwdziałanie ubóstwu dzieci i młodzieży w Unii Europejskiej. Między planowaniem a działaniem

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Białobrzeska
Keyword(s):  
Child Poverty ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

The aim of the article is to examine whether the member states of the European Union guarantee children in poverty the right to specific means of equal opportunities as guaranteed by the European pillar of social rights. A strategy for counteracting poverty based on the A. Giddens’s concept of the ‘social investment state’ was created in the EU. According to this concept, the state should support most of all these social groups which guarantee the highest social advantages. Following this idea, the union strategy for fighting poverty emphasizes the necessity of investing in children from early years of their lives. According to the social investment paradigm adopted by the European Commission, a crucial role in strategies for counteracting child poverty plays early childhood education and care.

scholarly journals Food aid in Poland in the years 2014-2019 as an expression of solidarity and European Union support for the national social assistance system

VUZF Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-176
Author(s):  
Piotr Fraczek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Assistance System ◽  
Food Aid ◽  
Poor People ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Eu

One of the goals of modern states is to strive for continuous economic development and ensure a high standard of living for their citizens. Social problems of too high intensity, existing in individual countries, may constitute a barrier to achieving this goal. One of the acute social problems in every country in the world is the phenomenon of poverty. The European Union and its member states undertake many measures to reduce poverty. One such activity was the creation of the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), which aims to help the poorest by providing food. The program aimed to complement the policy of public authorities in the Member States and to supplement the existing forms of support in the social welfare system. In Poland, the implementation of FEAD has been planned for the years 2014-2020, and this program was a visible manifestation of European solidarity and significant support for the social assistance system. The article aims to identify the level of support that Poland received in 2014-2019 from the European Union under the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) and to identify trends and problems in the distribution of food products to the poorest people. The analyzes show that in 2014-2019 Poland received support from EU-FEAD of EUR 416.9 million, which allowed for the provision of almost 299 thousand. tons of food for the poorest. In 2019, as much as 76% of the total food provided to the poor was financed from European funds. In the period 2014-2019, there is a noticeable trend in Poland consisting in increasing the share of food aid from the EU for Poland for the purchase of food for the poorest. This is worrying as the end of the EU-funded FEAD program may result in a significant decrease in the number of poor people receiving support in the form of food aid in Poland. One of the main problems in the distribution of food was the insufficiently developed network of food distribution organizations and the presence of municipalities not covered by the food aid program.

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