European Economic and Social Policy

EU integration is first and foremost an economic process. The core projects of the Single Market and the Monetary Union increased the prosperity of European states, but in so doing intensified the negative effects of globalisation. Since national states were unwilling to deepen political cooperation in the single economic and monetary area competition grew for capital investment, production locations and jobs. Competition between welfare states manifested itself in a race to the bottom with regard to taxes, unit labour costs and social spending. In parallel with this, macroeconomic imbalances also grew in the EU. This system collapsed with the ongoing Eurozone crisis that began in 2010.

The EU's susceptibility to crisis can be overcome only if Europe’s socioeconomic heterogeneities can be balanced out. From a Social Democratic standpoint a new model of social growth is needed for the EU that binds close economic policy coordination to a genuine social dimension and environmental sustainability.

If progress is to be made towards a political union an adequate theoretical approach and instruments are needed. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung contributes to this by means of studies, specialist workshops and conferences. The FES observes and evaluates the relations between centralised governance and decentralised policy coordination in European economic governance, as well as the restructuring of welfare states, and against this background develops guidelines for the realisation of a European economic and social model based on solidarity.

Recent publications