Social Europe and Experimentalist Governance: Towards a New Constitutional Compromise?

Abstract

This chapter examines the emergence and the constitutional future of the new coordination processes – and in particular the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) – which have been tried out in recent years within the EU in various fields of social and employment policy, amongst others. It describes a shift away on the part both of individual states and of the EU as a whole from the aspiration towards a single ‘Social Europe’ model to counterbalance the single European market, in favour of an approach that embraces but links the diverse national welfare systems within the European Social Model through coordination of policy and mutual learning. As for the most familiar and probably the most persuasive critique, i.e. that the OMC is largely a paper exercise which lacks real impact or effectiveness on social welfare, the discussion points to the methodological difficulties of demonstrating impact in this context.

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