A Social Europe without a Social Conscience

What is it about?

The EU was originally founded on the underlying principles of equality, social solidarity and social cohesion with economic growth envisioned as a sustainable vehicle to social wellbeing and social progress. Europe’s single internal market for goods and services led to higher economic growth and prosperity, effectively leading it to become a significant competitor within the neoliberal global world economy. Despite the subsidiarity principle and the adoption of the soft OMC governance mechanism regulating the area of social protection, Member States’ health, social welfare and social benefit systems are increasingly becoming directly and indirectly driven by the European liberal agenda. Malta is no exception to this Europeanisation trend. The socialist social welfare regime based on generous universal welfare provision has progressively given way to a more regulated, privatised and means-tested model, grounded in active inclusion policies targeted towards meeting labour market requirements and boosting the economy. In a context where the social well-being of all is increasingly becoming subordinated to the economic wellbeing of the few and wealthy, the paper questions to what extent the social model has remained a fundamental pillar of the EU and whether through the Europeanisation process, Malta is concomitantly losing its social conscience._x000D_

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