The impact of the financial and economic
crisis on European welfare policy – The
new governance of European policy
Anna Michalski
Department of Government
Uppsala University
Approaches to
European welfare policy
Varying welfare state models among EU states
Intrinsic
dimension
(EU legislation)
European
economic
integration
Extrinsic
dimension
welfare policy
(EU structural
funds)
European policy
coordination (Lisbon
strategy/Europe
2020
Why policy coordination?
• EMU: the continuation of the
“constitutional asymmetry
• Lisbon strategy
– EU ”governance architecture” on the meta
level
– Concern for competitiveness and welfare
challenges in the Euro area: missing microeconomic instrument
– Anchored in voluntarism, national agency,
and concurrent public management thinking
– OMC backed up by mutual learning
Outcomes of Lisbon
• Heavily criticized for no/little impact on
situation in member states
but
• Ideational convergence
• Institutional isomorphism
• De-politicization and centralization
• Potential negative effect on constitutional
actors in the member states in terms of
democratic governance
EU Crisis response
Explanatory mechanisms:
• Path dependency
• Crisis solution mode
A barrage of institutional and procedural
reforms of EU economic governance
European semester
• Argument:
– a strengthening (more coercive) policy coordination in
welfare policy
– Governance towards more centralization and
bureaucratization
– Uneasy relation between Community method (coercive)
and a hardened policy coordination (SBG, Europe 2020,
MIP)
• Direct link to national level
– Creating a direct link to national budgets (Euro area)
– Creating a link between EU institutions and national
parliaments
Challenge of democratic governance
• Influence on governance dynamic in OMC
processes: from dynamic learning to functional
problem solving?
• Impact of obligations enshrined in rescue
packages: a case of economic custodianship?
• Political tension between Euro area countries
(rescue funders vs. rescue receivers)
• Interaction between Euro countries and nonEuro countries
• Impact on democratic policymaking on
European and national levels
a form of cooperative federalism?