SOCIAL DUMPING IN

1
SOCIAL DUMPING IN NEW EUROPE?LIMITS IN
WEST-EAST TRANSFER OF WELFARE MODELS AFTER EE

• by
• Pal TAMAS
• HAS, Budapest

2
STRUCTURE OF THE PAPER

1. Ideal-type visions of Social Europe
2. Institutional frames of social policy integration
   in Europe
3. Motives for welfare state reforms
4. Capability deprivation as policy target
5. Reform frontlines
6. CEC dilemmas hard-soft law enforcement
   opposition through the backdoor

3
IDEAL-TYPE VISIONS OF SOCIAL EUROPE

• EURO-CORPORATIST IMAGES
• a. enlarged traditional welfare state
  philosophies
• b. uniform social standards
• c. social dialogue of labour capital
  social contract UNIONs, NGOs
• DECENTRALIZED CONCERTATION APPROACH
• a. coordinating national-level activity
• b. cross-country sensitivities
• CENTRAL EUROPEAN ELITES

4
FRAMES FOR INTEGRATION MOBILITIES- RIGIDITIES

• EU MEMBERSHIP NOW MORE BONUS FOR DEMOCRACY, THEN
  CREATION OF A UNIFIED ECONOMIC SPACE
• Employed labour mobility YES
• Social assistance mobility NO
• Service providers mobility LIMITED
• Agricultural benefits- mainly NATION-BOUNDED

5
SOCIAL POLICY INTEGRATION SE- Social Europe

• Until the late 90ies
• INTERNAL MARKETMONETARY UNION highly visible
• SE- hardly visible
• Lisbon Summit- March 2000 more active social
  policy
• CEC EU images of the elites
• basically
  pre-Lisbon vision

6
MOTIVES FOR WELFARE STATE REFORMS

• a.approach
• external competition pressure forces governments
  to welfare state reforms
• b.approach domestic structural- population,
  deindustrialization, fiscal crises, weakening the
  family as safety net
• CEC reform histories
• early 90ies- external
• late 90ies external internal
• early 2000s- more internal

7
THEORETICAL PUZZLE

• Social policy integration inclusion policies
  are better integrated, as others
• 1992- directive on Sufficient Measures in Social
  Assistance Systems
• 2001- OMC on social inclusion. Central element
  ACTIVATION re-integration into the labour
  market
• Asymmetry in favour of negative integration
  dismantling barriers against positive
  integration building new regulatory framework

8
THE RIGHT QUESTION

• CENTRAL ISSUE
• Not whether a particular arrangement is better
  for all than no cooperation at all, but whether
  the particular divisions to emerge are fair
  divisions given the alternative arrangements that
  are made.
• J.F.Nash The Bargaining Problem. Econometrica,
  18 1950
• THE RIGHT QUESTION
• Are the empowered actors getting a fair share of
  the benefits of economic interrelations?

9
CAPABILITY DEPRIVATION

• POVERTY CAPABILITY DEPRIVATION CD A.SEN
• lack of capability to live a minimally decent
  life
• Or Adam Smith not being able to appear in
  public without shame
• Social exclusion
• a. part of CD
• b. a cause of different capability failures
  relational failure

10
FAIRNESS IN THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL SPACE

• VISIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
• Grand universalism classical utilitarism
• National particularisms
• Plural affiliation A.Sen
• processing of multiply
  identities

11
CAPITAL FLOW- SOCIAL EXPENDITURE

• GLOBAL IMPACTS
• Open-and-smaller welfare state liberal
• Open-and-therefore-big welfare state left
• Net capital outflow growth of social expenditure
  NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
• GROWING WELFARE STATES ARE DOMESTIC REGIME
  MOTIVATED

12
REFORMS MAJOR- MINOR FRONTLINES

• OMC ACTIVATION POLICIES, as social policy
  co-ordination
• -fiscally marginal
• -not a major concern for the average voter
• REAL CONCERN
• SOCIAL EXCLUSION in different national welfare
  capitalisms. BUT this is regime specific,
  internal reforms

13
WELFARE CONVERGENCE

• 90ies
• Progressive dismantling of ideal-types of welfare
  state ESPING-ANDERSEN typology
• Focus on SOCIAL SECURITY EXPENDITURE, rather on
  the QUALITY OF SOCIAL POLICY
• Monetary union leads to less reform of the labour
  market fdistribution of the costs to the others

14
THE HARD AND SOFT LAW DILEMMA

• OMC European Employment Strategy informal
  sanctions, soft law
• Community Method- hard law
• Institutional debate relative capacities of
  different modes to handle specific tasks
• Governance modes policy options??
• CEC- culturally hard law oriented here the soft
  law is too informal

15
CEC OPPOSITION THROUGH THE BACKDOOR?

• Basic effects of Europeanization on domestic
  systems of governance
• Degree of misfit between European rules and
  existing institutional regulatory traditions is
  high
• Non-compliance with EU directives in the new and
  old member states
• ?? Related/unrelated to opposition and/or due to
  administrative shortcomings
• CEC policy philosophies tactics in interest
  representation of the week and latecomer