IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v165y2023i1d10.1007_s11205-022-03012-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Social Dimension of the European Union: A Means to lock out Social Competition?

Author

Listed:
  • Javier Bilbao-Ubillos

    (University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU))

Abstract

In the process of European integration, the social dimension has to date been subordinated to presumed economic requirements. There have been no specific commitments to preserve the European Social Model (ESM), which has been gradually diluted as a result of successive EU enlargements, the impact of ageing, job insecurity and socio-cultural changes on social protection systems and the pressure exerted by globalisation in a context of ever harsher market competition. Moreover, the decisions adopted by the EU in addressing the 2008 economic crisis have led Community institutions gradually to impose reforms of pension systems and labour markets, particularly in southern countries, which threaten to reduce the level of protection provided for citizens. This paper argues that the EU aquis is not sufficient to prevent social competition and warns of the risks arising from the current dynamic in terms of maintaining social cohesion, equal opportunities and fairness as basic features of European identity. Some data that illustrate the varying degrees of intensity and effort in social welfare provisions by Member States and the gradual divergence in social protection benefits are provided (using dispersion measurements). In an effort to be proactive, a number of proposals are given with a view to reversing this trend and consolidating the social content of the European project.

Suggested Citation

  • Javier Bilbao-Ubillos, 2023. "The Social Dimension of the European Union: A Means to lock out Social Competition?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 267-281, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:165:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-022-03012-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-022-03012-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-022-03012-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-022-03012-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amandine Crespy & Georg Menz, 2015. "Commission Entrepreneurship and the Debasing of Social Europe Before and After the Eurocrisis," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 753-768, July.
    2. Noelia Somarriba Arechavala & Pilar Zarzosa Espina & Bernardo Pena Trapero, 2015. "The Economic Crisis and its Effects on the Quality of Life in the European Union," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(2), pages 323-343, January.
    3. Javier Bilbao-Ubillos, 2021. "The Crisis of the European Social Model in the Adverse Environment of Globalization," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 478-500, September.
    4. Janine LESCHKE & Maria JEPSEN, 2012. "Introduction: Crisis, policy responses and widening inequalities in the EU," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 151(4), pages 289-312, December.
    5. Paul Copeland & Mary Daly, 2018. "The European Semester and EU Social Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 1001-1018, July.
    6. Amandine Crespy & Georg Menz, 2015. "Commission Entrepreneurship and the Debasing of Social Europe Before and After the Eurocrisis," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/205514, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Paul DE BEER, 2012. "Earnings and income inequality in the EU during the crisis," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 151(4), pages 313-331, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liberati, P., 2024. "Are European health models still different?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2441, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Copeland, 2022. "The Juncker Commission as a Politicising Bricoleur and the Renewed Momentum in Social Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(6), pages 1629-1644, November.
    2. Beatrice Carella & Paolo Graziano, 2022. "Back to the Future in EU Social Policy? Endogenous Critical Junctures and the Case of the European Pillar of Social Rights," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 374-390, March.
    3. Mikkel Mailand, 2021. "Commission entrepreneurship and EU employment policy – The fate of a former darling," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(3), pages 249-267, September.
    4. Anna Elomäki & Johanna Kantola, 2020. "European Social Partners as Gender Equality Actors in EU Social and Economic Governance," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 999-1015, July.
    5. Volintiru Mihai, 2018. "The internalization context of private health service providers in Europe: Romanian market case study," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 1038-1047, May.
    6. John Peterson, 2017. "Juncker's political European Commission and an EU in crisis," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 349-367, March.
    7. Alberto Arenal & Claudio Feijoo & Ana Moreno & Sergio Ramos & Cristina Armuña, 2021. "Entrepreneurship Policy Agenda in the European Union: A Text Mining Perspective," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(2), pages 243-271, March.
    8. Ana Paula Brandão & Isabel Camisão, 2022. "Playing the Market Card: The Commission's Strategy to Shape EU Cybersecurity Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1335-1355, September.
    9. Patrick Sachweh, 2018. "Conditional Solidarity: Social Class, Experiences of the Economic Crisis, and Welfare Attitudes in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 47-76, August.
    10. Guglielmo Meardi, 2018. "Economic Integration and State Responses: Change in European Industrial Relations since Maastricht," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 631-655, September.
    11. Bernhard Zeilinger, 2021. "The European Commission as a Policy Entrepreneur under the European Semester," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 63-73.
    12. Paul Copeland, 2023. "Poverty and social exclusion in the EU: third-order priorities, hybrid governance and the future potential of the field," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 29(2), pages 219-233, May.
    13. Sandrino Smeets & Alenka Jaschke & Derek Beach, 2019. "The Role of the EU Institutions in Establishing the European Stability Mechanism: Institutional Leadership under a Veil of Intergovernmentalism," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 675-691, July.
    14. M. Azhar Hussain & Nikolaj Siersbæk & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2020. "Multidimensional welfare comparisons of EU member states before, during, and after the financial crisis: a dominance approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 645-686, December.
    15. Sebastian Leitner, 2013. "Analysis of Short and Medium Term Crisis Effects on Welfare and Poverty in SEE: Stress Testing Bulgarian and Romanian Households," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 111, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    16. José Antonio Rodriguez Martin & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera & José María Martín Martín & José Antonio Salinas Fernández, 2018. "Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Measurement of Progress Towards Millennium Development Goals," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 499-514, January.
    17. Giancarlo MANZI & Pier Alda FERRARI & Sonia STEFANIZZI, 2017. "On the Impact of the European Union in Citizens’ Perception of Quality of Life," Departmental Working Papers 2017-08, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    18. Sue Durbin & Margaret Page & Sylvia Walby & Sue Durbin & Margaret Page & Sylvia Walby, 2017. "Gender Equality and ‘Austerity’: Vulnerabilities, Resistance and Change," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-6, January.
    19. José María Martín Martín & Jose Antonio Salinas Fernández & José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan De Dios Jiménez Aguilera, 2017. "Assessment of the Tourism’s Potential as a Sustainable Development Instrument in Terms of Annual Stability: Application to Spanish Rural Destinations in Process of Consolidation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-20, September.
    20. Wasilewski Adam & Krzyżanowski Julian & Chmieliński Paweł, 2021. "Complementarity of the Measures of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Cohesion Policy for Rural Development Between 2021 And 2027 in the Light of Programing Documents," Problems of Agricultural Economics / Zagadnienia Ekonomiki Rolnej 319674, Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:165:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-022-03012-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.