“The State of European Union Social Policy”

Geyer, Robert. (1999) “The State of European Union Social Policy” . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1999 (6th), June 2-5, 1999, Pittsburgh, PA.

Abstract

Like the European Union (EU), EU social policy has seen a phenomenal amount of change and development in the 1980s and 1990s. It is startling to think that merely 20 years ago, EU social policy was confined to a few areas of labour, training and health and safety policy, had made only minimal advances in gender policy, and had barely recognized a number of major social groups (elderly, disabled, ethnic minorities, etc.). As the millennium approaches, EU social policy encompasses a wide variety of issue areas and social groups, is supported by a plethora of social policy interest groups, and plays a significant role in the evolution of member-state social regimes. In this paper, I would like to examine the current “state” of EU social policy (inspired by the ECSA’s State of the European Union series) through a brief history of its development, and exploration of its role in European integration theory, and a short summary of its current status. Following this, I will draw four main implications from the history of EU social policy and speculate on its future and the “next wave” of EU social policy research.