A Manifesto for Social Europe

• Published date: 01 June 1997
• Author: Simon Deakin,Alain Supiot,Ulrich Muckeberger,Pertti Koistinen,Brian Bercusson,Yota Kravaritou,Bruno Veneziani
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0386.00026
• Date: 01 June 1997

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A Manifesto for Social Europe

Brian Bercusson, Simon Deakin, Pertti Koistinen,

Yota Kravaritou, Ulrich Mückenberger, Alain Supiot,

Bruno Veneziani*

Abstract: The European Union is still far from having social legitimacy. The issue is

indicative of a huge uncertainty about Social Europe. What is it? What are the

principles of social justice behind it? In our view, a new social constitution of the

European Union is needed. Political democratisation must be accompanied by the

foundation of a social Europe. We argue that were the IGC to combine the Charter of

the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers with the Maastricht Protocol on Social

Policy, inserting both into the TEU, it would lay the legal foundations for a dynamic

European social constitution; a Social Europe dedicated to the combating of social

exclusion and the maintenance of solidarity.

I The Concept and Rationales of Social Europe

The idea of Europe is very much linked to the specific European concept of modernity.

Modernity in Europe has been a synthesis of technological imagination and produc-

tivity, trust in a public sphere and a strong state authority, and the legal guarantee, the

constitutionalisation, of fundamental rights of the individual. Europe is probably the

only continent where these three elements entered into a productive relationship and

interdependency. The result was an understanding of the social state which

institutionalised individual social rights as universal rights. These rights were

conceived of not merely as the entitlement of those in need to benefits. Rather, they are

an integral element in both the assessment and the progress of society: its economic

performance, social welfare and cohesion, and capacity for both stability and change;

both its identity, and its capacity for permanent socio-cultural, technological and

organisational adjustment. Further, European modernisation had a specific character:

class conflict and collective identity have strongly shaped industrial society and its

social dimension.

The postwar period in Europe has been characterised by two contradictory

currents. On the one hand, though more so in the early postwar decades, there was an

European Law Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, June 1997, pp. 189–205

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* University of Manchester, University of Cambridge, University of Tampere (Finland), European

University Institute (Florence), Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Politik (Hamburg), University of Nantes,

University of Bari. We are grateful to the European Trade Union Institute and its Director, Reiner

Hoffman, for having hosted the Manifesto Group several times and supported our work without

interfering with the academic independence of the authors. Alessandra Bosco, Stefan Clauwaert and

Martin Hutsebaut (ETUI) and Erik Carlslund (ETUC) were very helpful to the progress of our work.

enormous extension of the social dimension: social insurance systems emerged or were

extended, social assistance became an entitlement, and so on. On the other hand, in

more recent decades, the unity of political, economic and social theory and practice

has been increasingly challenged; at present, it has almost disappeared. Instead, there

reigns an isolated economism, the dominance of the free market principle and a retreat

from public responsibilities.

The mainstream of European integration policy, under the guidance of neoclassical

theory, isolated allegedly economic imperatives from the requirements of social

cohesion. The purely economic foundations of the EEC, the Single Market and the

Economic and Monetary Union are the result of such blind economism. All assume

that economic progress will automatically entail social and societal progress. This

assumption has led to a European economism which threatens its social and political

foundations, and the European Union. The EMU has been primarily justified in terms

of economic policy objectives and with arguments from economic theory. Price

stability, low inflation, and sound public finances have been emphasised as the

objectives of the EMU and the criteria for membership. All these objectives can be

justified in the perspective of classical macro-economics, but there are differences

among economists and politicians on whether they are sufficient and attainable

criteria.

The view that these criteria are unattainable has been supported by the argument

that the economic structures, and the traditions of the political economy, of the

Member States differ so fundamentally from each other that the transitional period is

not sufficient. For example, if the reorganisation of public finances is attempted with

shock therapy, the countries concerned will face an even higher and growing rate of

unemployment. The view that the convergence criteria are not sufficient preconditions

for economic stability has been justified, for example, by the claim that the conver-

gence criteria do not include an objective on employment, which is one of the central

equilibrium criteria of classical economics. It may be asked whether a country which

otherwise meets all the Maastricht criteria but has a high rate of unemployment can

achieve macro-economic equilibrium.

Social Europe cannot remain a mere side-effect of the economy and the market.

Structural unemployment, due to the dysfunction of labour markets, is a looming

threat, eroding social rights and citizenship in Europe. As a result, new social

divisions, between employed and unemployed, those in stable and those in precarious

employment, have emerged. Society is threatened by ineffective policies on unemploy-

ment, malfunctioning labour markets and inadequate social policy. The wrong labour

and social policies can maintain structures and practices which slow down necessary

structural changes. Policy preconditions for favourable economic development

concern not only monetary and financial policy, but also policies on employment, and

controlling taxation, social security and income transfers. The EU also needs

minimum criteria for labour and social policies. For labour policy, a high and steady

level of employment, and effectively functioning labour markets are the objectives.

Social policy requires an extensive employment and social security system which

motivates citizens towards employment and social participation, and establishes the

prerequisites for any necessary structural change.

Europe needs social convergence criteria. Social rights and market regulation are

not obstacles to economic and societal progress and modernisation; on the contrary,

they are prerequisites of the latter. Social convergence criteria are necessary for the

Economic and Monetary Union in order to overcome mass unemployment, provide

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