Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Dedication
Introduction: "Social Europe" - irrelevant, catching up or dangerous?
1 What is the European social question?
Grasping the social question from different conceptual angles
Inequality, justice and solidarity
Social rights and social citizenship
Welfare states and the European social model
EU socio-economic governance and Social Europe
Cohesion and convergence
Explanations for the EU's social deficit
Institutional factors: a fundamental asymmetry between economic and social integration
Ideational factors: the neoliberal turn and the death of Social Europe
Political factors: joint-decision trap and sovereignty
Material and social factors: the hegemony of economic actors
Reflecting on the normative roots of the European social question
The internationalist or intergovernmentalist perspective
The transnationalist or federalist perspective
Pluralist perspectives
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
2 Is the EU a key player in addressing social issues?
Piecemeal prerogatives across policy areas
Differentiated modes of policy-making and governance
A failed political project
The EU and national welfare states
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
3 Are socially minded actors too weak in EU policy-making?
The institutional triangle
The European Commission
The Council
The European Parliament
The independent institutions
The Court of Justice of the European Union
The European Central Bank
The member states
Political coalitions and socio-economic models
The implementation of social policies
Organized civil society
The European Economic and Social Committee
Trade unions.

Non-governmental organizations
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
4 Is European social regulation a thing of the past?
The patchy rise of social issues in the EU's primary law
A gradual build up in the treaties
The advent of EU-wide fundamental social rights?
The laborious extension of social regulation through legislation
Free movement and labour law
Health
The key role of case law
The codification of case law through legislation
Strengthening legislation through case law
From extending to curtailing social rights?
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
5 Does liberalization undermine social cohesion?
The freedom to provide services and social dumping
From attempts to strike the balance between market freedom and labour law …
… To a pro-market offensive
And back
The marketization of welfare
From public service to competitive markets
Liberalizing welfare services through sectoral directives
Limiting public financing via the control of state aid
The opening up of welfare states
The rampant liberalization of healthcare
The access of non-nationals to social benefits: a limited right
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
6 Does the European social dialogue really protect European workers?
The labour movement and the EU: a complicated relationship
Trade unions between Europeanism and social critique in the early days
The rise and fall of the European social dialogue
The Great Recession and the further weakening of neo-corporatism
The European social dialogue in practice: a toothless bite?
An awkward delegation of legislative powers
The patchy implementation of autonomous agreements
The sectoral European social dialogue
European works councils.

The trade unions' role beyond the social dialogue: vox clamantis in deserto?
Institutionalized forms of participation
Advocacy and protest
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
7 Does soft coordination support welfare states?
A new economic and governance philosophy for welfare state modernization
The European Employment Strategy and the turn to "activation"
The Lisbon Strategy as an ambiguous modernization project
The OMC: a problematic soft touch in EU governance
The European Semester: the rise of a Leviathan from one crisis to another?
Social policy subsumed by economic policy
Political schizophrenia between austerity and social investment
The European Semester in flux in the era of resilience and recovery
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
8 Is redistribution unconditional?
From regional convergence to investment and resilience
Economic transformations and elusive convergence
From regional policy to employment policy
Redistribution in times of crises
Planning redistribution through multi-level governance
Budgetary programming and broad operational principles
A bureaucratic partnership between multiple authorities
Does it work?
The rise of conditionality, between bureaucracy and politics
Endogenous conditionality: improving policy implementation
Exogenous conditionality: using the funds as a stick
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
9 Is the EU fit for the social challenges of the twenty-first century?
Brexit: "taking back control" for greater social cohesion?
The social roots of Brexit
Social welfare in the post-Brexit UK
Towards social dumping?
EU health policy after Covid-19: between interdependency and sovereignty
Capacity building as a result of health crises.

Political resistance to competence creep
A socially just ecological transition: limited ambitions in the face of great challenges
New distributional and political conflicts
Social justice: the blind spot of the European Green Deal?
Old politics and temptation of greenwashing
Conclusion
Further reading
Questions to debate
Conclusion: From the social question to the democratic question
Addressing the European social question through democratization
Index of CJEU judgments
References
Index.