Since the early days of European integration, social policies have been a particularly contentious field. This was due, to an important extent, to the combined effect of the resilience of national welfare states and the idiosyncratic nature of the integration process. It was this context that...

The paper addresses the role of social partners in the European integration process. It gives an overview of the social dialogue structures and experiences in the European Union (EU) and evaluates the achievements and experiences in developing social dialogue in the former and present candidate...

This paper is the result of critical discussions held in the framework of the SALTSA project on the post-2010 continuation of the Lisbon process. The general conclusion is that Europe will continue to need, in the future, a common strategy for growth and sustainable development which builds on...

This paper analyzes how EU social objectives and policy coordination have been integrated into the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Union’s emerging post-crisis architecture of economic governance. Based on published and unpublished documents as well as interviews with high-level policy makers,...

This article portrays a bleak picture of European realities. Analyzing world social, gender, ecological and economic development on the basis of the main 9 predictors, compatible with the majority of the more than 240 published studies on the cross-national determinants of the human condition...

This article focuses on the Lisbon strategy, the latest moment in EU social policy. Following developments up to the end of 2005, it seeks to assess the significance of the poverty/social inclusion open method of co-ordination in terms of what it indicates about the EU's engagement with social...