The return of the commission social entrepreneurship before and after the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Although a great number of scholars have attested the “slow-burning” crisis of Social Europe between the mid-2000s and the beginning of the 2010s,recent developments in EU social policies show important novelties, especially thanks to the adoption of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). Our argument is that the EPSR witnesses a renewed activism of the European Commission-led “supranationalism”, which unfolds through the revival of the “Community Method” in a political environment marked by an increased domestic politicisation of the European integration process. In so doing, the EPSR acted as both a “polity-maintenance” and “policy-trigger” strategy by deepening the EU integration in social policy domain after a decade of substantial polity inertia. The article also discusses the explicit and implicit legacy of the impact of EPSR on Social Europe by looking at the new initiatives and strategies carried out by the von der Leyen Commission.

KEYWORDS:

• Social Europe
• Theories of European Integration
• Commission entrepreneurship
• European Pillar of Social Rights
• Covid-19

Acknowledgments

This paper has been written in the context of the REScEU Project (Reconciling Economic and Social Europe, www.resceu.eu), funded by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant 340534).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The expression ‘social strategy’ refers to the overall set of actions carried out by the Juncker Commission to relaunch the social dimension of the EU. These actions were centered on the adoption of the EPSR as inter-institutional proclamation and the related packages of policy initiatives.

2. On the concept of fast- and slow-burning EU crisis, see Seabrooke and Tsingou (2018).

3. See Juncker, J-C. 2015. State of the Union Address. Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity. Available here.

4. In this respect, De La Porte and Natali (2018) provide an interesting framework to distinguish different types of entrepreneurs (intellectual, bureaucratic and political entrepreneurs) according to the arena in which they operate and their main power resources.

5. A list of the interviews is provided in Annex I.

6. Juncker, J-C. (2014) A New Start for Europe: My Agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. Available here.

7. Juncker, J-C. (2014) ‘Time for Action’, Statement in the European Parliament plenary session ahead of the vote on the College. Available here.

8. The EC will review the Action Plan in 2025 to provide a new basis for further actions.

9. Von der Leyen, U. (2021) Speech by President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary on the presentation of the programme of activities of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU. Available here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the EUSOCIALCIT. The EUSOCIALCIT project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement N. 870978).