At a time when Europe is in the grip of a new crisis, it is especially useful to look back at the experiences of the European welfare states’ constitutions during the most recent financial crisis. This book provides unique insights by analysing social protection reforms undertaken in nine European countries, from both a social law and a constitutional law perspective. It highlights the mixture of short-term cuts in benefits and of structural changes in social protection schemes. The crisis might have helped to further the partial and temporary implementation of reforms, but it certainly cannot spare us from the debates and political compromises that are unavoidable in order to reform social protection thoughtfully and thoroughly. Moreover, the book records the outcome of relevant constitutional review proceedings and thereby demonstrates that, even if corrections remained restricted to relatively few cases, social rights matter. The financial crisis advanced their protection one step further, but left many questions open. One lesson is of paramount importance, also for helping us overcome the current pandemic crisis: we need a substantial and commonly accepted agreement in the Europe Union on how to balance the economy and social protection in the future.
Book Review: The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State, by Steven Klein
