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

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.

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.

Introduction: Themed Section on the European Union and Social Policy: National and EU Policy Interaction

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-210
Author(s):  
Linda Hantrais
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Founding Member ◽  
The Social ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
Social Protection Systems

When the European Economic Community was established in 1957, the six founding member states (Belgium, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands) had a shared interest, though each for their own reasons, in ensuring that provisions to promote the harmonisation of national social protection systems figured in the treaties. Progressively, and as membership of the Community expanded and diversified, the social dimension came to be accepted as a legitimate, albeit contested and subordinate, component in European law and policy. Whereas the social protection systems of the six original member states could be considered as variants of the continental model of welfare, the new waves of membership in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s brought different conceptions of social protection, making harmonisation ever-more difficult to achieve. Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom in the second wave were characterised by their universal welfare systems. Greece, Portugal and Spain in the third wave had less developed, minimalist provision for social protection. In the fourth wave, Austria was closer to the founding member states, whereas Finland and Sweden represented the Nordic model with their universalist system based on social democratic criteria.

scholarly journals Two Decades of Change in Europe: The Emergence of the Social Investment State

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEES VAN KERSBERGEN ◽  
ANTON HEMERIJCK
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The Social

AbstractSince the late 1970s, the developed welfare states of the European Union have been recasting the policy mix on which their systems of social protection were built. They have adopted a new policy orthodoxy that could be summarised as the ‘social investment strategy’. Here we trace its origins and major developments. The shift is characterised by a move away from passive transfers and towards the maximalisation of employability and employment, but there are significant national distinctions and regime specific trajectories. We discuss some caveats, focusing on the question whether the new policy paradigm has been established at the expense of social policies that mitigate poverty and inequality.

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.

Peculiarities of Social Protection of the Population in a Pandemic Condition: Economic and Legal Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetiana Kondratiuk ◽  
Iryna Novoselska ◽  
Oksana Palelulko ◽  
Olena Shevchenko ◽  
Oksana Tsiupa
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States

The article aims to carry out an economic and legal analysis of the main measures of social protection of the population of Ukraine in the context of the pandemic COVID-19. To achieve this goal it was: analyzed the concept of social protection and identify its tools; identified key regulations that determine the features of social protection in a pandemic COVID-19, compared the means of social protection of the Member States of the European Union; formulated concrete and substantiated proposals for improving the level of social protection of the population in the context of the COVID–19 pandemic.

scholarly journals European social model vs directive Bolkestein

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-77
Author(s):  
Srdjan Redzepagic
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
European Union ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Social Model ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
High Level

In this article is elaborated the actually question which is developed and discussed it the European Union is the European Social Model (ESM). It is a vision of society that combines sustainable economic growth with ever-improving living and working conditions. This implies full employment good quality jobs, equal opportunities, social protection for all, social inclusion, and involving citizens in the decisions that affect them. As the Euro-zone is struggling to move away from a dramatic slump in its economy and while the Lisbon Strategy and its potential for economic growth, strongly needs reactivation, the debates over the Europe have raised again the issue of a sustainable social agenda for the European Union. Recently, Europe's political leaders defined the ESM, specifying that it "is based on good economic performance, a high level of social protection and education and social dialogue". An important topic of the discussion nowadays is the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market so called "Bolkestein directive". The importance of this article is to give us the answer to the following question: would we have French goods available in French supermarkets all over Poland and no Polish services allowed in France? The EU would be unthinkable without the full implementation of the four freedoms. This is a good directive, going in the good direction.

scholarly journals APPROACH TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SLOVENIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 62-66
Author(s):  
Barbara Bradač Hojnik
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Formal Status ◽  
Financial Environment

In this paper, social entrepreneurship as a developing type of entrepreneurship is analyzed. On the level of the European Union (EU), social entrepreneurship is widely supported by different initiatives which aim to develop a suitable legal, administrative, and financial environment for social enterprises, but also allowing member states to regulate them individually. This paper focuses on the social entrepreneurship in Slovenia, where it is strictly shaped by the legislation. Consequently, social enterprises need to meet the legislation’s requirements which hinder their quantity and development. Additionally, the scope of social enterprises is narrowed to those companies that received the formal status of social enterprise. In the paper provided will be the data on social enterprises in Slovenia with some recommendation for further development of the framework for social entrepreneurship in the country.

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