Mere Objectives or Hard Law? A Case Study on the EU‘s Social Policy in the Context of Free Market Economy

Abstract

IntroductionIn Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) the Union commits itself to combating social exclusion and discrimination as well as to promoting social justice. This does not change the fact, though, that the ability and/ or commitment to create a genuinely inclusive society varies considerably between the EU Member States (cf. e.g. Schraad-Tischler and Kroll, 2014). In the recent years the agenda of the Union's highest political body, the European Council, was dominated by the economic and financial crisis in a manner that somewhat marginalised the Union's social policy and social investment. The structural reforms and austerity policies pursued during the crisis with a view to stabilizing national economies and budgets have by and large produced an adverse effect on the implementation of social justice on the European continent, reducing the performance of national social security systems, thus 10.14254/2071789X.2017/10-3/17 aggravating social divide and letting youth unemployment grow to ever-new record heights. This development has inevitably posed a stress test for the credibility of Union's commitment to the promotion of social justice, internally and world-wide.In order to critically assess whether the EU lives up to this challenge, it is necessary to analyse both the tools the Union has at its disposal as well as the manner they have been applied to date in pursuance of these aims. Whilst the main objective of this paper is to attempt to define the impact of the EU basic economic principles on its policy in social matters, the contribution also offers nuanced argumentation transgressing this thematic scope and suggesting pathways and opportunities for further research. The applied research methodology includes a combination of theoretical and analytical methods.1.The laborious development of the Union's social dimensionIn order to fully appreciate the state of the art in the EU's social policy of today, it is vital to be aware of its development in a diachronic perspective. At their very origins, the European communities (the European Coal and Steel Community as of 1952 and the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community as of 1957) provided for merely economic integration and cooperation of the founding states. In time the said economic cooperation covered a broader scope of areas (the objective of achieving a single market, the development of environmental and energy policies as well as of measures leading to the Economic and Monetary Union) and it included more countries. Thus economic integration was a continuous driving force behind a process of Europe's political integration and it remains so also to date.Prior to the Treaty of Maastricht which came into force on 1 November 1993, the European Economic Community's (EEC) legal framework for social policy was absolutely minimalist. Whilst Article 117 of the EEC Treaty provided for the necessity to improve working conditions and standards of living of workers, most relevant Community secondary legislation on employees' rights in the event of collective redundancies, transfer of undertakings and the employer's insolvency was enacted first after mid-1970s.1 Albeit the rule of equal pay for equal work of women and men was since the founding of the EEC enshrined in a directly applicable Treaty provision (Article 119 EEC), legislation implementing the principle of equal treatment of men and women in employment was adopted in 1975/76 only.2 The systems of social security remained (and still remain) on a strictly national basis. The access of nonnationals to such systems was and is governed by specific regulations and complemented by the non-discrimination rules. A certain turning point towards a more comprehensive approach consisted in the establishment of the Union citizenship by the Treaty of Maastricht, which facilitated judicial advance of social and labour rights. The Treaty provisions on Union citizenship imply for host Member States a need to show a certain degree of financial solidarity with the nationals of other Member States provided that they have established a genuine or real link with the society of the host Member State. …