Re-solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis

1 [Penultimate draft, forthcoming in: Hien, J and Joerges, C (eds.) Responses of European Economic Cultures to Europe’s Crisis Politics: The Example of German-Italian Discrepancies. Proceedings from the Villa Vigoni Conference, pp. 263-268. Robert Schumann Center, EUI: Florence. Full ebook available here] Maurizio Ferrera Carlo Burelli Re-solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis The very existence of the European Union is today under attack by an increasingly virulent Euroscepticism. In our view, the prime root of this “deep” political crisis is the sharp misalignment between the new nature of the EU after the establishment of EMU, its authority structure, and the normative order which underpins cooperation and the “sharing code” among the member states. Dangerous centrifugal forces feed on the apparent lack of awareness among national and European politicians about the “deep” causes of prolonged instability and existential threats. Yet survey evidence signals that a “silent majority” would be potentially available to support a far-sighted project of institutional reforms and of solidarization of the EU

Rescued by Europe? Social and labour market reforms in Italy from Maastricht to Berlusconi

As a result of its political and economic turmoil for much of the postwar period, Italy was considered the "bad seed" in the European community. Harsh ideological divisions, chronic executive instability, inefficient bureaucracy, uneven socio-economic development, organized crime and unbalanced public finances all contributed to this negative perception. Yet a massive economic and social overhaul was launched in the 1990s as part of Italy's efforts to meet the famous Maastricht requirements in order to join the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This book examines those processes and skillfully analyzes their consequences by exploring the effect they had on governmental and social actions. "Two of Italy's foremost public policy specialists, Ferrera and Gualmini are well placed to tell the story of how Italian political élites, long oriented towards buying off opposition and vested interests by expanding a bloated public debt,were finally confronted with reality by EMU membership criteria. Rescued by Europe is both a fascinating narrative of how governments, employers and unions responded to the EMU imperatives, and an in-depth analysis of how Italy's idiosyncratic labour markets and welfare system function, both for good and ill." Martin Rhodes Professor of European Public Policy, European University Institute, Florence, Italy Maurizio Ferrera is professor of social policy at the University of Pavia, Italy, and a member of the Italian National Commission on Social Exclusion. Elisabetta Gualmini is professor of administrative science at the University of Bologna, Italy

Rescued by Europe?

As a result of its political and economic turmoil for much of the postwar period, Italy was considered the "bad seed" in the European community. Harsh ideological divisions, chronic executive instability, inefficient bureaucracy, uneven socio-economic development, organized crime and unbalanced public finances all contributed to this negative perception. Yet a massive economic and social overhaul was launched in the 1990s as part of Italy's efforts to meet the famous Maastricht requirements in order to join the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This book examines those processes and skillfully analyzes their consequences by exploring the effect they had on governmental and social actions. "Two of Italy's foremost public policy specialists, Ferrera and Gualmini are well placed to tell the story of how Italian political élites, long oriented towards buying off opposition and vested interests by expanding a bloated public debt,were finally confronted with reality by EMU membership criteria. Rescued by Europe is both a fascinating narrative of how governments, employers and unions responded to the EMU imperatives, and an in-depth analysis of how Italy's idiosyncratic labour markets and welfare system function, both for good and ill." Martin Rhodes Professor of European Public Policy, European University Institute, Florence, Italy Maurizio Ferrera is professor of social policy at the University of Pavia, Italy, and a member of the Italian National Commission on Social Exclusion. Elisabetta Gualmini is professor of administrative science at the University of Bologna, Italy

eu citizenship needs a stronger social dimension and soft duties

This contribution argues for strengthening EU citizenship in order to make it not only attractive for mobile Europeans but also for 'stayers' who feel left behind in processes of globalisation and European integration. EU citizenship is primarily 'isopolitical' and regulatory; it confers horizontal rights to people to enter the citizenship spaces of other member states and it imposes duties of non-discrimination on these states without providing for redistribution in response to perceived or real burdens resulting from free movement. I suggest several reforms that aim broadly at empowering the stayers. Among my proposals are an 'EU social card', universal transferrable vouchers for accessing social rights in other member states that stayers can pass on to their children who want to move, and a European wide social insurance scheme that would supplement those of the member states. I also suggest to strengthen EU citizenship with some soft duties, such as earmarking a small percentage of personal income tax for EU social policies or raising funds for such policies through fees on an EU social card or EU passports

social citizenship democratic values and european integration a rejoinder

This Forum debate has gone way beyond my expectations and hopes. I thought that commentators would mainly address my proposals on enhancing rights and introducing duties. The conversation has instead extended to my diagnosis as well, to the rationale which lies at the basis of my prescriptive ideas. By focusing on starting points, the forum has thus brought into light different perspectives and styles of reasoning around citizenship and even broader political questions. With hindsight, I should have spelled out more carefully my basic assumptions. But there is time to remedy this now – and not just for the sake of this particular discussion. I am in fact convinced that a closer and more systematic dialogue between empirical, normative, legal and social theorists would be a welcome and beneficial innovation, a way to contrast excessive disciplinary perspectivism and the related risks of analytical lock-ins

Tackling the adverse effects of globalisation and integration:Ideas on a European Social Union

Besides creating new opportunities and improving the lot of many people around the world, globalisation and economic integration have also generated economic and social losses. The latter are particularly concentrated among the lower and middle classes of advanced industrialised countries, who have seen their position worsen primarily as a consequence of shifts in technological and geographic production patterns. Meanwhile, the nation state’s capacity to tackle social problems such as inequality, poverty and unemployment has been declining as a result of its exposure to capital flows, endogenous transformations like ageing, institutional stickiness and growing public debt burdens. The populist response to this combination of problems is to reverse the process of globalisation and integration, and return to hard national borders. If at all possible, such sovereignist recipes would not, however, be an effective solution to the challenges of globalisation and integration. While such challenges must be acknowledged, new social policy solutions should be devised to improve the lot of the “losers” of globalisation and integration without giving up the many advantages brought about by these processes. We argue that the European Union is the appropriate sphere in which to devise such solutions, for it works at a scale large enough to preserve the gains from openness while constituting an arena for the legitimate and viable creation of new boundaries for market corrections. Based on these premises, we present ideas for the development of a European Social Union, structured on five interrelated components: 1) the Member States’ national social spaces; 2) the social citizenship space: 3) the transnational social space; 4) the EU’s social policy; and 4) the European social constitution

Why we need a European Social Union. A free standing political justification

Do we need a more social UE – or even a fully-fledged European Social Union (ESU)? An increasing number of empirically oriented social scientists argue that we do. This paper how ESU could be pieced together by r-assembling what is already in place, exploiting in particular the potential of the European Pillar of Social Rights. The paper also discusses the rationales behind the ESU proposal. There is, first, a twofold functional rationale: the EU institutional asymmetry between market making and market corrective goals and policies generates perverse effects; EMU needs a number of social corollaries to effectively perform its mission and functions. But there is a second and equally important rationale, based on political factors. A tenet of political theory is that any territorially organized collectivity cannot survive and prosper without the diffuse support of its members. The latter rests however not only on effectiveness, but also on fairness. Citizens must feel that the territorial government abides by the general norm of somehow representing the collective interest, taking care of all sectors/strata of the population, however weak and peripheral. In order to be politically effective, Social Europe cannot however limit itself to enhancing its institutional strength and policy production. It must become more visible to ordinary citizens and provide them with direct tangible benefits