The Welfare State After the Great Recession.The economic crisis has given rise to significant challenges to the welfare state. Given that welfare expenses account for a large proportion of all state spending in the member countries of the European Union, reducing government spending means...

Arguments on "social Europe" need to give an unequivocal answer to questions of why, what, and how. With regard to the question of why, I argue that, whereas ten years ago the quest for an operational description of the European social model might have been dismissed as interesting but not...

In this report, Frank Vandenbroucke and Bart Vanhercke argue that Europe is in need of a "Social Union": one that would support national welfare states on a systemic level in some of their key functions (such as macroeconomic stabilisation) and guide the substantive development of national...

This contribution argues for a truly reciprocal social investment pact for Europe: member states should be committed to policies that respond to the need for social investment; simultaneously, member states' efforts in this direction – notably efforts by member states in a difficult budgetary...

All existing monetary unions centralise, to various degrees, specific social policy functions, notably functions that support economic stabilization, like unemployment insurance. The European Monetary Union features as the only exception. Compared to the United States, the European Monetary...