Socialinės Europos kūrimas

• MRU CRIS: knygos tekstas

LTMonografijoje atskleistas politinių, ekonominių ir socialinių permainų sąlygotos Europos Sąjungos socialinės politikos atsiradimas, raida ir tapsmas savarankiška ES politikos sritimi, išryškinti jos skirtumai nuo valstybių narių socialinės politikos bei santykis su jomis, aptarta Europos socialinio modelio problematika integraciniuose procesuose, išryškintos socialinės politikos pertvarkos Vidurio ir Rytų Europoje, Lietuvos socialinės politikos modernizacijos ir pokyčių galimybių kryptys, pabrėžta Europos Sąjungos pilietybės įvedimo svarba saugant pilietines, politines ir socialines teises, atskleistas Europos Sąjungos socialinės politikos taikomasis pobūdis labiausiai pažeidžiamoms socialinėms grupėms: pagyvenusiems žmonėms, neįgaliesiems, moterims. Monografijai būdingas tarpdalykinis požiūris: siejamos istorijos, filosofijos, politikos mokslų, viešojo administravimo, teisės, sociologijos ir kitų mokslų žinios. Ji gali būti naudinga tų sričių mokslininkams, magistrantūros ir doktorantūros studentams ir politikams praktikams. [Anotacija knygoje]

ENThe aim of the book is to re-evaluate the direction in which the social dimension of European integration is going. The EU’s social dimension, once considered the supplement of European integration, has received considerable attention since the launch of the Lisbon strategy and of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) processes in employment and other social fields. The book emphasizes that accounts of European social policy generally present a minimalist interpretation of European Union involvement. The sovereign nation-state allows no relevant role for the EU in social policy. The Union’s sphere is market building, leaving social policy to citizenfocused, national welfare state, its sovereignty formally untouched, though perhaps endangered indirectly by growing economic interdependency. The book defines and discusses the Lisbon strategy’s new approach on social policy and aims at bringing together economic, employment and social policies by focusing them on the commonly defined objectives of improving competitiveness, moving towards full employment and promoting social inclusion. Targets: to identify welfare state as a national state; to analyze changes in development of EU social dimension; to identify consolidation of economic, social and employment policy in Lisbon strategy; to identify EU citizenship as a guarantee for social security in EU; to analyze EU social policy for different social groups at risk (disabled, elderly, women). Research methods: analysis of EU documents, statistical analysis, comparative analysis of Member States social policy. The development of social policy was a key element in the history of European state building, and the welfare state is a central component of all advanced industrial nations. “Welfare states”, Abram De Swaan writes, “are national states” (1994, 102).But the process of European integration has eroded both the sovereignty and autonomy of member states in the realm of social policy. National welfare states remain the primary institutions of European social policy, but they do so in the context of an increasingly constraining multi-tiered polity. As noticed by Stephan Leibfried and Paul Pierson (1995, 45), the transformation of sovereign welfare states into parts of a multi-tiered system of social policy occurs through three processes: “Positive”, activist reform results from social policy initiatives taken at the center by the European Commission and Council of Ministers, along with determinations by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) of what those initiatives mean; “Negative” reform occurs through the ECJ’s imposition of market compatibility requirements that restrict and redefine the social policies of member states. Finally, the process of European integration creates a range of indirect pressures that are not legally required but nonetheless strongly encourage national welfare states to adapt their social policies to avoid the potential negative consequences of economic integration. Nevertheless, the Union has gradually assumed considerable authority in policy domains beyond those directly tied to the creation of a common market. Thomas Humphrey Marshall defined social policy as the use of “political power to supersede, supplement or modify operations of the economic system in order to achieve results which the economic system would not achieve on its own” (1975, 15). The EU is actively engaged in policies of redistribution among both sectors (through the Common Agricultural Policy) and regions (through the structural funds). When the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) was signed in 1957, the dominant political philosophy was market driven.The six original EEC member states Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – believed that, if enterprises were allowed to compete on equal terms, the distribution of recourses would be optimized, enabling untrammeled economic growth, which would automatically result in social development. Social harmonization was seen as an end product of economic integration rather than a prerequisite. For these reasons, the social policy provisions contained in the treaty did not define precise social policy objectives; they limited EEC responsibility to promoting co-operation. Member states did recognize the need to establish a social fund to help declining areas of the economy, but it was to operate on a very small scale. As Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the European Community (EC) in 1973, a more active approach to social reform was advocated on the grounds that the unevenness created by giving free rein to market forces was unacceptable and not in the long term interests of member states. The next 20 years therefore saw a growing commitment, at least in principle, to social dimension as a component of European integration and a necessary complement to economic policy, rather than simply a spillover from it. The mid 90s were characterized by the arrival of new Member States in the EU, and Sweden and Finland brought with them, the Scandinavian model of virtuous complementarity between economic, social and employment policy. [...]. [From the publication]

• Politikos mokslai / Political sciences
• Sociologija / Sociology