Challenges of Lisbon strategy for the development of the EU social policy

Abstract

The article emphasizes that accounts of European social policy generally present a minimalist interpretation of European Union involvement. The sovereign nation-state allows no relevant role for the EU in social policy. The Union's sphere is market building, leaving social policy to citizen-focused, national welfare state, its sovereignty formally untouched though perhaps endangered indirectly by growing economic interdependency. The article discusses European social model as a set of European Community and member-state legal regulations, but also as a range of practices aimed at promoting a comprehensive social policy in the European Union. The European social model has developed alongside the different steps taken towards European integration, that confirms how this model is related to EU economic and political integration.