EDITORIAL

‘Social Europe’, one of the core elements of Jacques Delors’ social democratic heritage, promised to lend the European political project greater legitimacy. Thanks to his efforts, the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) contributed decisively to institutionalizing social and employment policies in the European political system. The objectives of promoting ‘a high level of employment’ and better coordinating social policies and social protection in accordance with the basic rules – spelled out in the European Social Charter (1961) and the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers (1989) – became new elements of the European Community’s legal basis.

The Lisbon strategy, inaugurated in 2000 and replaced by the Europe 2020 strategy in 2011, reflected an intensification of employment and social policy activities and the development of new governance tools – above all, in the case of Lisbon, the ‘extension’ to ‘the social’ of the open method of coordination (OMC), which originated in employment policy. Indeed, the European Employment Strategy, despite numerous criticisms and its overemphasis on more rather than better jobs, has been a milestone in the construction of a social dimension for Europe. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it has not done much to establish concrete and substantial common objectives or effective instruments, but it has undoubtedly widened the panorama and institutionalized discourse and comparison of objectives, practices and instruments of domestic social and employment policies. In the long run, this might contribute to more positive outcomes for European workers. This ‘cognitive dimension’ of Social Europe has become a crucial element of an overarching policy strategy, appropriate for driving forward policy developments in the Member States. The process of strengthening Europe’s social dimension is now under way, but its accomplishment lies far in the future. This raises the question of whether and how this process will be continued beyond the Lisbon strategy (see Transfer Vol. 15(1)) and particularly in light of the recent economic crisis and current austerity policies. To this end, this special issue addresses the question of whether the new Europe 2020 strategy provides sufficiently concrete and comprehensive policy objectives and the appropriate instruments to further enhance the construction of Social Europe and thereby contribute to the well-being of European citizens.

The articles in this issue offer differentiated analyses of the new Europe 2020 strategy in terms of its potential to promote social issues. As the follow-up strategy to Lisbon, and containing headline targets on employment, research, development and innovation, climate change and energy, education, and poverty and social exclusion, the Europe 2020 strategy was approved by the Member States only in June 2010 and the new tools were applied for the first time in 2011. It is therefore still too early for a comprehensive and substantive assessment. However, we can analyse the basic construction mechanisms and assess what they might imply for workers and citizens in Europe. Most of the authors in this special issue are fairly sceptical concerning the benefits of the Europe 2020 strategy when it comes to attaining further substantial social achievements. This is illustrated in detailed analyses of various social policy sub-fields and governance mechanisms and instruments. In a political perspective, the issue aims to formulate ideas and arguments about how to make the Europe 2020 strategy more beneficial to the enhancement of Europe’s social dimension. The current situation and context for promoting social issues at the European level is quite different from the mid-1990s and 2000s. In that context, we suggest that there are currently four major challenges facing policy-makers in European social policy:

1. Growing pressure for fiscal consolidation: The financial crisis, which in most countries started in autumn 2008, has resulted in large increases in unemployment across the EU, particularly but not exclusively among young people, and falling employment. Severe cuts in domestic budgets have narrowed the scope for action in terms of investment in social policy measures. Most of the authors in this issue suggest that the Europe 2020 strategy’s reinforced emphasis on supply-side driven growth and new economic governance has a one-dimensional focus on fiscal policies, thereby limiting the chances of building a comprehensive social policy dimension. Social policies will lose their relative weight rather than gain ground over the coming decade. This is what Bieling argues in his contribution on social and employment policies when budgets are tight. The second wave of adjustment policies will be based on austerity strategies which would constrict any leeway for social security measures, further deepened by the new EU economic governance. The subordination of social policy enhancement within Europe 2020 to reform of the economic governance framework in response to the challenges of the economic crisis are also highlighted in Armstrong’s analysis of EU social policy and the governance architecture of Europe 2020. In the same vein, Daly’s analysis of EU social policy’s underlying paradigms points to the fact that under Europe 2020 even basic issues such as poverty and employment are subordinated to economic governance and any development in the social fields depends on the Member States’ public finances. This paradigm change and reversed political priorities might cause problems also in the long run. The present policy shift and new governance design run the risk of undermining democratic decision-making, which is necessary for gaining public support of substantial and sustainable social policy strategies (Bieling). For young people in particular, the economic crisis may have long-term consequences, as underlined in the contribution by Chung, Bekker and Houwing: increases in insecurity with regard to both employment and income will have both short- and long-term effects not only for individuals but society in general. Overemphasizing supply-side labour market policies and the benefits of education to the detriment of stimulating demand-side policies – the current policy preference – is unlikely to fix this problem. The predominant emphasis on the economic over the social agenda is not due exclusively to ideological and politically founded decisions but also to more practical questions since at present political energy and time are being absorbed by crisis management, impeding more forward-looking (social) policy projects.

2. More heterogeneity: In contrast to the mid-1990s, mechanisms of regulation and coordination in EU policies cover – due to the accession of 12 new Member States – not only a larger but also a more heterogeneous group of domestic employment and social systems. At the same time, Member States’ employment and social security systems have changed throughout the Lisbon period, among other things in response to the emergence of ‘new social risks’. The recent crisis and the subsequent consolidation measures – which differ considerably between the EU Member States – are further widening the gaps between Member States. The extent to which EU social policy strategies can take account of this diversity and allow for individual adjustment strategies is questionable, as illustrated by Willert’s contribution on pensions: despite the EU’s rhetorical commitment to the protection of vulnerable workers, the one-size-fits-all strategy, promoting sustainability in pension reforms rather than adequacy is likely to lead to weaknesses in pension provision for people with career breaks and atypical employment. Similarly, the one-sided supply-side strategies with regard to youth unemployment may undermine more comprehensive and substantial strategies for promoting and protecting young workers (Chung, Bekker and Houwing). Heterogeneity among the Member States is not only evident in the problems being experienced but may also be attributable to social policy traditions and differences in institutional structures, as Bothfeld and Leschke underline in their article on job quality. Actors and Member States may be fundamentally divided on policy positions and, consequently, block any effort in particular policy domains, depending on their basic understanding of Europe’s social dimension.

3. Need for new definitions of social values and norms. The fact that heterogeneity of interests, competition and Member States’ fear of losing their relative advantages have grown rather than decreased over the past decade, further amplified by the challenges of the economic crisis, has increasingly called into question the implicit consensus on basic values and norms underlying the European model. It may be that the activation paradigm, although the adopted strategies and outcomes differ widely between the Member States, is the last common project to spell out ‘new – not always positive – rules’ of social solidarity.

The struggle over common normative fixing points is illustrated in several of the articles in this special issue. Bothfeld and Leschke show, for the European level, how complex the issue of quality of work is, as reflected in the diverse understandings of the concepts of different European actors and the changing priorities with regard to this issue over time. Even though experts at the European level may have attained a comprehensive understanding of quality of work, this issue is far from being adopted and implemented in terms of a substantive policy strategy. This basic conflict is evident also in other policy domains, such as the narrowing focus in the EU on poverty and the fact that the concerns for very basic issues (poverty prevention) may crowd out more comprehensive strategies (Daly) or in pension policies, where normative ambiguity (adequacy vs. sustainability) is most evident. Reform strategies for pension schemes do indeed shift and change between the two poles identified by the European Commission. Despite the EU’s commitment to protect vulnerable workers, the Europe 2020 strategy clearly prioritizes the ‘sustainability’ version of adjustment. These examples reflect the basic tension in EU social policies – exacerbated by the economic crisis – between the commitment to social values and norms as a legitimizing element, contributing to European citizens’ well-being, and the difficulties involved in reconciling economic and social issues. The ambiguity of the concept of flexicurity can be considered an excellent illustration of this dilemma. We see an urgent need to bring the debate on normative references back into the debate on EU policies; the ‘capability’ approach (see Transfer Vol. 18(1)) represents one of these attempts and the debate on quality of work is another attempt to approach the relevant problem in a more concrete way.

4. The systemic weaknesses of EU competences in the domain of social policies are replicated, if not enhanced, by the Europe 2020 strategy. The inter-linkage between economic and social governance within the new ‘European Semester’ is a case in point. A number of authors in this special issue scrutinize the contribution of the refined governance strategy to social policy objectives at the EU level. Armstrong, in his article on EU social policy and the governance architecture of Europe 2020, emphasizes that the Lisbon Treaty, while rhetorically attempting to enhance the Union’s social identity, has done little to bolster the EU’s social policy toolkit. Moreover, he asserts that it is difficult to locate and demarcate the governance architecture of Europe 2020, let alone its social dimension. According to his analysis, it is not yet clear how much or how little of the social OMC will be absorbed into the economic and employment policy coordination framework that now forms part of the European Semester. Similarly, pointing to the shortcomings and limitations of the new Europe 2020 strategy, Daly argues that although poverty is given a prominent place and the recourse to targets is intended to harden up Member State and EU coordination, the poverty target risks being rendered ineffective. This is due not only to the loose definition of poverty which leaves the choice of appropriate indicators up to individual Member States but also to the overemphasis on economic growth in the flagship initiative on poverty, without clarifying how this is to reduce poverty. The reconfiguration of economic and social governance is not yet finalized and is constantly being challenged by ongoing crisis developments. So far, developments have tended to focus on economic rather than social coordination, more or less disregarding the longer-term social challenges of the economic crisis aggravated by the current economic governance endeavours.

Although the challenges to the European social model remain manifold and the current primacy of short-term economic and fiscal issues is evident we hope that the articles in this special issue will highlight a number of issues that are currently underplayed and will contribute to formulating longer-term strategies that can put ‘the social’ back on the European agenda.