A devious road to the EU social dimension
Krzysztof Blusz and Paweł Świeboda
It was meant to be a campaign about social Europe. When if not in the European Parliament elections, should EU citizens make a judgement on their leaders‘ performance in the crisis? When if not now, should there be a frantic debate about the right set of policies for the future? And yet the real battle of the paradigms is still to unfold.
One cannot deny a degree of sensitivity to social issues on the part of official candidates for President of the European Commission. Jean-Claude Juncker, the EPP’s hopeful, has called on the North to adopt a more moderate approach towards the South. The latter endured reforms, Juncker says, that would have caused riots in France or Germany. The PES candidate Martin Schulz insists the EU stability pact must be corrected and the deficit rule relaxed since states are crucial investors for growth in the crisis countries. In the background of this, the new French Prime Minister Martin Valls outlines his savings plan with about 60 percent of the 50 billion euro cuts meant to take place in the social realm. Valls claims the savings will not undermine France’s social model and social rules, especially the minimum wage. He also stresses that they are „not an austerity plan“.
In the meantime, the more radical and unorthodox parties do not miss an opportunity to exploit public anxieties for their purposes. To be sure, they also shy away from facing structural problems in a systemic fashion and opportunistically concentrate on allegedly rotten EU institutions and wasteful eurocrates. As the National Front leader Marine Le Pen told the Sunday Times: „We want to change the EU, so that it has as little power as possible and we can recuperate as much power as possible for our country until we win power and organise a referendum on leaving the EU“ (The Sunday Times, 20 April 2014).
The fear of addressing the issue of Europe’s social contract is paralysing the continent’s politicians for two reasons. One has to do with their unwillingness to admit the obvious – Europe’s response to the crisis has largely been carried out through deflation and internal devaluation that exacerbated existing social deficits and intra-EU diversity. As the Euro Area 2014 survey of the OECD shows, in the course of the past four years, relative unit labour costs have fallen sharply in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, even if they have continued to rise moderately in France and Italy.
The second reason is about the inability to offer a wholistic vision of the purposes which the social dimension ought to serve. There is a growing consensus about the need to shift from social protection to social enablement, in response to the grand trio of 21st century challenges: globalisation, technological change and demography. However, nothing short of a cultural change would be necessary to achieve this type of transformation. Its political risks are obvious. It requires a reallocation of resources as well as a different set of attitudes. It is much more tempting to continue along the beaten track of gradual social adjustment.
In a qualitative study which demosEUROPA – Centre for European Strategy has recently carried out, together with five European partners – European Policy Centre, ELIAMEP, Centre for Liberal Strategies, EUROPEUM and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – we asked citizens in seven EU member states what their expectations towards the European socio-economic model would be. Research methodology, complete data sets and key findings are presented and available for downloading on the newly launched web site: www.newsocialcohesion.eu.
Three conclusions stand out. First of all, there is remarkable degree of acceptance across the seven countries for the consolidation of public finances. Regardless of their economic fortunes in the past few years, respondents seem to assent that lack of fiscal prudence carries an enormous economic cost. They have come to terms with the reality that living beyond means is not a workeable solution. Secondly, they attach high value to the provision of health and family life as key ingredients of their „well-being“. Above all, they seem to guard the essentials and they want social spending to continue in these areas, even if at the expense of cuts elsewhere in the economy or in public administration. Thirdly, they have enormous expectations towards the European Union in the social domain. Although national governments get most of the blame for the crisis, the EU is called upon to compensate both for the member states‘ inability to provide expected social well-being and for the hardship the EU itself had imposed through austerity.
Are therefore people ready for the great bargain? It remains to be seen. On the one hand, they seem to accept the need for unwinding the debt spiral and firming up the culture of fiscal stability. They are also eager to see more EU-level intervention, difficult as it would be on the basis of the current treaties. But at the same time, they are clearly attached to the pre-crisis imagery of the „European way of life“ and do not want to see cuts made in the provision of public services. It seems, therefore, that the defensive bulwarks exist on both sides – that of the government as well as that of the society. No-one would still replace the former in its duty to lead.
