The Euro Crisis and Its Impact on National and European Social Policies

Can the Welfare State as We Know It Survive? A View from the Crisis-Ridden South European Periphery

“…The credit crunch, turned into a sovereign debt crisis in SE, has intensified the challenges and tensions faced by the SE welfare states and brought to the fore questions such as: Has the crisis ushered in a period of draconian social retrenchment? Does this indicate a significant erosion of social and labour rights, as social policies in the broad sense have become the main variables of adjustment -through internal devaluation -in the European Union (EU) (Degryse, Jepsen & Pochet 2013)? Or is there, instead, a window of opportunity for recasting social policy along the lines of a 'social investment' welfare state (Hemerijck 2012)? Equally relevant is Pierson's argument about tactics of policy 'drift' (e.g.…”

“…Crisis management measures (the 'Six Pack' of macroeconomic policies, the 'Euro Plus Pact', the 'European Semester' and the 'rescue deals' for the ailing countries) more or less embrace a single objective, namely structural adjustment through wage squeezes, weakening public services and social protection. This reflects the dominance of the market-driven convergence approach (via deregulation and market adjustments), given the fact that any plan for socio-political integration has persistently been undermined in the EU so far (Degryse, Jepsen & Pochet 2013). Advocacy in favour of an emerging 'social investment' paradigm does entail innovative potential to counteract the austerity orthodoxy.…”

Socializing the European Semester? Economic Governance and Social Policy Coordination in Europe 2020

“…(E.g. Degryse 2012;Pochet and Degryse 2012;Degryse et al 2013;Hacker 2013;de la Porte and Heins 2014. ) Or does such integration offer new opportunities for social and employment policy actors (DG Employment, the Employment and Social Protection Committees, the EPSCO Council, social NGOs) to mainstream objectives such as the fight against poverty and social exclusion across the new governance architecture of the European Semester, including macroeconomic and budgetary surveillance as well as the CSRs?…”

“…The comply--or--explain text justifying this amendment emphasized both the contextual misfit of the original recommendation with the actual situation of the Swedish labor market and its inappropriate encroachment on the social partners' responsibility for wage determination. 25 24 Degryse, Jepsen, and Pochet (2013) repeatedly cite the Commission's original across--the--board recommendation as evidence of the unchallenged dominance of EU economic policy actors over pension issues and the anti--social character of the CSRs, without noticing its subsequent amendment by the Council.…”

EU employment governance revisited

“…The ECB's new position was therefore right at the centre of gravity of the normative apparatus, located mid-way between the markets and the political sphere.' [emphasis added, NB] 837 Yet, despite the ECB's influential position vis-à-vis the financial markets, the EU crisis management was still typified by ad hoc-style decision-making, while several Member States were facing severe financial and economic hardship. The "disciplining" rationale underpinning the EMU thus appears as a key factor in explaining this "muddling through"-type of crisis management.…”