| Popis: |
With the publication of the latest Annual Growth Survey (AGS)1 a new annual cycle of EU economic policy coordination has begun. The AGS is an important step in the European Semester2. In this cycle "the European Commission analyses the fiscal and structural reform policies of every Member State, provides recommendations, and monitors their implementation; the Member States implement the commonly agreed policies". The AGS sets out the European Commission’s views on the EU’s social and economic priorities and provides the building blocks for the policy recommendations it will put forward in the spring. The European Semester streamlines the macro-economic, the labour market and the fiscal policies. In recent years, the Semester streamlined the austerity and supply-side economic and social policies. The first AGS based on the reorientations of the new Commission is long-awaited: the new Commission promoted it as a new start for Europe. The AGS is intended to be part of this new start. There are many signs that this Commission wants to take another path. The AGS shows a new discourse. But can we expect more? The AGS expresses the new priorities of the Commission. As we show in this Policy Brief, the AGS announces a larger sensibility for social accents in EU-policy. We should however note that social policy has always been a matter for member states, the Commission only provides guidelines, which is very different from the strict fiscal and monetary rules under various monetary union projects such as the single currency. Unfortunately, often discourse is not enough to convince citizens that the European Union will truly work for an effective implementation of its social objectives. We show that a massive ambiguity is blurring the meaning of this discourse. We find a misreading of the signs and a lot of blind spots in the AGS. Therefore, as shown in this Policy Brief the Commission should go further: The Commission must develop a real European social policy. Social policy is of course a core task of the Member States, but this doesn’t mean that Europe can’t take the lead. As in the discussion surrounding the refugee crisis, the Commission can develop this policy: binding common standards of social protection; an enforceable benchmarking; common standards on social investment, … The Commission must re-evaluate the AGS. The AGS is the consequence/result of the macro-economic governance of the Six- and Two-pack. This macro-economic governance is based on a misreading of the signs and contains several blind spots. A new governance can be elaborated, one that reckons with these blind spots and a correct reading of the signs. |
