Plaidoyer for a Social Europe

• Author: Fernando Vasquez
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12365
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Published date: 01 March 2020

IN MEMORIAM

Plaidoyer for a Social Europe

Entre concurrence et coopération : Europe sociale ou protection par

les États?

Fernando Vasquez

*

Abstract

‘It is with great sadness that his many friends learned of the passing of Fernando Vasquez, on 16 July

2020, in Porto. I met Fernando Vasquez some thirty years ago, at a time when, together with

Jean‐Jacques Paris, another friend who recently passed away, and under the direction of Odile

Quintin in DG V of the European Commission, he was working on building a Social Europe. That

was before the European Union failed as a post‐liberal orthodoxy, driving along all Member States,

in a race to the lowest social and fiscal bidder. As Frédéric Turlan reminds us, in a tribute published

in the recent issue of Liaisons sociales Europe, n. 502, 23 July‐2 September 2020, Fernando Vasquez

witnessed with lucidity this backsliding which has heavily contributed to the current disconnection

between citizens and the European project, but it did not prevent him from relentlessly striving for

more justice in the European Union. These efforts, his diagnosis, without complacency, of the

current state of the Union and his most recent suggestions for ensuring both social and economic

convergence under the aegis of solidarity, are retraced in his contribution to the Conference

‘Revisiting solidarity in Europe’, which was held on 18 and 19 June 2018 at the Collège de France in

Paris. To honour his memory and as a testament to his commitment to a certain idea(l) of Europe,

one which is true to its principles of democracy and social justice, here is the text of his contribution,

a call, and his last plaidoyer, for a social Europe.’

Alain Supiot, Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France in Paris.

1|INTRODUCTION

1

‘“Europe”has been on the defensive for a millennium. Now, for half a millennium, it conquered the

world. (...) Seeking for a single programmatic “Europe”leads only to endless debates about the

*Former Member of the European Commission's Directorate‐General for Social Affairs.

The European Law Journal wishes to thank Alan Supiot for his introduction in the Abstract section of this article by Fernando Vasquez.

1

Ce texte est originellement issu des actes du colloque suivant: Alain Supiot (dir.), Revisiter les solidarités en Europe: Actes du Colloque—18 et 19 juin 2018

—Collège de France. Revisiter les solidarités en Europe, Juin 2018, Paris, France, disponibles sur le site HAL Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société.

DOI: 10.1111/eulj.12365

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