Saving Europe ‘Under Strict Conditionality’: A Threat for EU Social Dimension?

European socioeconomic governance in action : Coordinating social policies in the third European Semester

Abstract: Although new European Union (EU) economic coordination has changed the landscape of governance, the effects on social Europe are still being discussed. Some argue that the EU has lost track of its social aspirations, while others observe a new space for social Europe. This paper clarifies recent governance changes and their possible effects by giving a comprehensive overview of socio-economic coordination in 2013. It shows that within socioeconomic coordination distinct coordination mechanisms interact and consequently influence each other’s goals. Using qualitative content analysis techniques, the paper identifies such interactions both at the target-setting stage of coordination and at the stage of giving recommendations to individual countries. Economic coordination, in particular, has stretched to include social policy issues. Yet, the governance outcomes in terms of country-specific recommendations neither constrain nor develop the EU’s social dimension per se. This means that there is room to make economic and fiscal rules more open to social goals.

EU Economic Governance in Action: Coordinating Employment and Social Policies in the Third European Semester

Abstract: New economic coordination has changed the landscape of EU governance (Amtenbrink, 2012). Its impact on the EU’s social dimension is topic of political and scholarly debate. Some tend to argue that the EU has lost track of its social aspirations (e.g. Janssen, 2013; Watt, 2013; Clauwaert and Schomann, 2012), while others are more optimistic in their search for a new space for social Europe (e.g. Bekker and Klosse, 2013; Vanhercke, 2013). This paper adds to this discussion by analysing the interaction between four socio-economic coordination mechanisms joined within the European Semester 2013. Surveying the interaction between separate coordination mechanisms matches the notion that different governance modes are at least interrelated or even 'yoked together' (Armstrong, 2013; Trubek and Trubek, 2007). Using qualitative content analysis techniques, the paper addresses the interaction between the coordination mechanisms, both at the stages of target setting and of recommendation-giving to individual countries. The conclusion is that new economic governance is characterised by integrated socio-economic coordination, incorporating employment and social issues within economic coordination cycles, especially at the phase of giving recommendations. However, this does not necessarily mean that social-policy recommendations stemming from an economic coordination cycle always constrain the EU’s social dimension.

European Citizenship and Social Rights in Times of Crisis

Abstract: European citizenship celebrated its twentieth anniversary during the most difficult and uncertain moment of the Union's crisis. The real economy has now been fully saturated by the financial crisis far beyond the borders of the Euro-Mediterranean area, with devastating social effects in those countries most affected. The prolonged vertical drop of the gross domestic product in Greece—the epicenter of the crisis—has been intertwined with a dramatic and unprecedented growth of levels of unemployment and social suffering in a vortex destructive to the point of validating the perception, now widespread not only within the bewildered public opinion of that unfortunate country, that the “rescue” of the Union has been based on a cure that is worse than the disease. The recent general elections in Italy, a country key for the stability and indeed the survival of the Euro-zone, have produced a situation of fragmentation and political instability that is both unprecedented and disquieting. Among the few elements of certainty in Italy can be found a widespread Euro-skepticism, if not an openly anti-European mood, that is also unprecedented in the history of the country's public opinion, which historically is among the most favorable towards a strengthening of the integration process. With the worsening of the economic and social crisis, the very tenacious confidence in Europe as a positive “external constraint” which has supported Italy's efforts towards reforms, commencing with its admission into the Euro-zone in the latter 1990s until the most recent experience of the technocratic government headed by Mario Monti, seems to have declined. Everywhere in Europe, a sense of frustration and distrust in recent years has grown against the Union and its frantically sought capacity to respond to the crisis without finding truly effective outcomes.

A Charter of Rights, Freedoms and Principles

Abstract: At the Nice European Summit in December 2000, the three organs of the Union – the Council (acting for the Member States), the Commission and the European Parliament – solemnly proclaimed the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This first comprehensive statement in the human rights field was the result of a hectic 9 month negotiating programme in which I was privileged to participate as the UK Government representative. In this article, I would like to recount something of the history of those negotiations and some personal reflections on the Charter to which we helped give birth.1 My paper draws its title from the final sentence of the Charter’s preamble: “The Union therefore recognizes the rights, freedoms and principles set out hereafter.” These words, and the Conclusions of the June 1999 Cologne European Council, which set up the work of the Charter, are the best basis for considering the nature of the European Union’s new Charter of fundamental rights. Reaction to the Charter has been a heady mixture of misunderstanding, hostility and unrealistic expectations. I would like to start therefore with the historical background to the Charter and its place in the historical development of the European Union since it helps me to put it in its proper context.

Welfare Integration through EU Law: The Overall Picture in the Light of the Lisbon Treaty

Abstract: The authors present a synthetic view of the evolution of the impact of EU law on the provision of welfare services in the member states of the EU. They distinguish, in this regard, between the core welfare services, in which the impact of EU law is more recent and less important, and the services provides by public utilities, where EU law has had a major transformative impact for many years now. In recent years, however, the distinction between the two categories becomes more blurred. The paper also discusses the likely impact of the Lisbon Treaty, if and when it enters into force, on welfare integration through EU law.

International Economic Law and Monetary Measures: Limitations to States' Sovereignty and Dispute Settlement

Abstract: Contents: Introduction 1. International Monetary Stability and Global Financial Stability as Global Public Goods and the Role of International Economic Law 2. The Bretton Woods Institutions and their Role in the Provision of Global Public Goods: Focusing on International Monetary Stability 3. The Global Financial Architecture: Towards a Strengthened Institutional Framework for Global Financial Stability? 4. Exchange Restrictions and Capital Controls under the IMF Legal Framework 5. Exchange Restrictions and Capital Controls under the WTO Legal Framework 6. Exchange Restrictions and Capital Controls in International Investment Law 7. Exchange Rate Manipulation in International Economic Law Index