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    STUDIA EUROPAEA - Issue no. 1 / 2009  
         
  Article:   THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL AND LABOUR MARKET POLICY COORDINATION IN THE EU: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW.

Authors:  NIKOS KOUTSIARAS. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  Development of EU social policy has, since the early days of European integration, been systematically related to the efficiency – equity classification of social policy objectives, the equity objective being almost exclusively served by (democratically legitimised) national social and labour market policies. But it has also been shaped by national governments’ demands for EU‐provided legitimacy, especially with regard to various market confirming ‐ and conforming ‐ policy reforms. Those demands have, in turn, been driven by the domestic political economy of growth and redistribution and, therefore, have been tightly linked to the needs for rescuing the national welfare state. Thus, unsurprisingly, EU social and labour market policy has not developed in a simple evolutionary fashion, instead having followed an erratic course of uneven progress over time and across issue areas. Nevertheless, received accounts of EU social and employment policy have often failed to adequately address ‐ and explain ‐the host of empirical issues associated with the role of the EU in the domain of employment and social affairs.

Keywords: European Union, labour market, political economy, social policies, integration 		 
         
     
         
         
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