In this contribution, we look again at the trajectory and the efficiency of the ‘European social model’ (EMS). We re-apply an econometric methodology, which was already used in the study Herrmann, Heshmati et al., 2008, 2009. In that study, the authors said that apart from Finland and the Netherlands, some new EU-27 member countries, especially the Czech Republic and Slovenia, provided some answers to the question about the efficiency of state expenditures in reducing poverty rates, while countries like the Federal Republic of Germany achieved only a mediocre ranking. Considering the fact that social expenditures often amount to ¼ or even 1/3 of the GDP in advanced Western democracies, this question has acquired new and additional importance during the current international debt crisis, affecting several European countries such as Greece. Put in simple terms: aren’t the Germans, French … also throwing a lot of money out of the window, while the world is now fixed on the Greeks? The most influential social science journal article on the subject, mentioning the ESM in the title, was written by Scharpf, 2002 and maintains that efforts to adopt European social policies are politically impeded by the diversity of national welfare states, differing not only in levels of economic development and hence in their ability to pay for social transfers and services but, even more significantly, in their normative aspirations and institutional structures. Hyman, 2005, even says that there is simply no agreement what 'social Europe' means in the first place, let alone how it should be defended against the challenges inherent in the neoliberal approach to economic integration. Jepsen and Pascual, 2005 were equally sceptical about the subject. They even maintain that the very use of the concept under scrutiny here – the EMS - in the academic and political debate is simply a rhetorical resource intended to legitimize the politically constructed and identity-building project of the EU institutions. In our re-analysis of the ...
