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

welfare policy

Intrinsic dimension

Extrinsic dimension

European economic integration

European policy coordination (Lisbon strategy/Europe 2020

(EU legislation) (EU structural funds)

Varying welfare state models among EU states

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 micro-economic 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 non-Euro countries

• Impact on democratic policymaking on European and national levels

a form of cooperative federalism?