Europe's social model is an (still) unfulfilled promise

Saskia Montebovi

During global turmoil such as the current one, Europeans deserve a social model that empowers and protects them. But what are the prospects for the welfare state, social protection, and solidarity in a Europe with an ageing population, new precarious forms of work, and growing inequality?

We may not think of the EU when it comes to these issues, but it has a key role to play in upholding the promise of a social Europe. 

Balancing exercise

As Europe faces numerous challenges and heightening global economic competition, some argue that its high standards in social protection, among other areas, are obstacles to business-friendly economic growth and rearmament. They echo the dog-eat-dog rhetoric that comes from across the Atlantic.

Competitiveness and economic growth have also become the buzzwords of the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen. She and her fellow European leaders frequently praise Europe's social model, but at the same time, she is also rolling out an agenda of deregulation in Brussels. 

She does so with the influential report of Mario Draghi, who argued that Europe should be as productive and innovative as the United States but guarantee social inclusion rather than systemic inequality.

This is a balancing exercise, in which much is at stake. Because in a world where inequality is on the rise and democracy is on the decline, social protection represents egalitarian ideals and one form of democratic values. But what can the EU do to protect them?

A European social model?

Europe's social model is not a product of the EU itself. Europe's welfare states go much further back, all the way to the French revolution. Wages, pensions, and social security today remain the exclusive domain of member states. There is not one European social model, but a complex amalgam of 27 different ones.

The European Commission works together with member states to coordinate these diverging policies. Through the instrument of the European Semester, the Commission distributes billions of euros to advance social goals. It uses these funds as leverage to encourage member states to improve their social policies.

The Commission has consistently criticised the Netherlands, for example, for the excessive flexibility of its labour market and the resulting precariousness for workers with flexible contracts, unstable wages and poor protection. Years of political pressure from Brussels to address this problem now seem to pay off. 

The Dutch government wants to regulate compulsory insurance for self-employed workers against work incapacity, create better criteria to distinguish between employees and self-employed workers, and diminish flexible work in favour of more stable contracts. 

What could the future look like

There is no lack of ambition. The EU has pledged to strengthen social protection at the European level. In 2017, it announced the European Pillar of Social Rights – an ambitious agenda of social rights, including an emphasis on life-long learning and work-life-balance. This agenda has already borne fruit. A 2022 law ensures minimum wages across the EU, for example.

At the same time, many of the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights remain only as good intentions. The EU has done little to advance transparent and fair working conditions or affordable housing as planned.

But this is no time for the EU to rest on its laurels. Since economic competitiveness and security have become top priorities, social protection is easily relegated to the background. But Europe's social model is no luxury. It is Europe's first line of defence against the insecurity that grips the world.

Saskia Montebovi works as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Maastricht, with a focus on Dutch and European social law.

This article is part of an opinion piece series on the future of Europe and the Europe that could be. It's produced in a collaboration between Studio Europa Maastricht and The European Correspondent.