CER Research Seminar | Whatever happened to Social Europe?

Centre for European Research 

Dr Amandine Crespy, Université Libre De Bruxelles

The promise of Jacques Delors seems to have spawned a flurry of European Union directives, yet has since fizzled out. This path-breaking volume, bringing together a team of international interdisciplinary experts from across Europe, systematically explore the EU’s social policy activities, both before and after the Eurocrisis. The contributors examine how and why the great expectations remained unfulfilled, but also move the scholarly debate beyond the emphasis on courts and markets. European Commission policy entrepreneurship, eastern enlargement, the shifting ideological contours of European Social Democracy, and the spirit of the Lisbon Agenda have all led to market creation taking strong precedence over market correcting policies.