Is There a Convergence on Social Policy in the European Union? MINIMUM INCOME PROTECTION AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION: TRENDS AND LEVELS OF MINIMUM BENEFITS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE, 1990–2005

This article draws attention to the Europeanization of social policy and the development of minimum income protection in a large number of welfare democracies. The empirical analyses are based on unique institutional and comparative data on benefit levels from the Social Assistance and Minimum Income Protection Interim Dataset. There is some evidence of convergence in benefit levels among the European countries in the new millennium, but there is no clear proof of universal ambitions to fight poverty or of the existence of a single European social model. There are still welfare front-runners and those who lag behind in this regard, not only among industrial welfare democracies in general but also in Europe. The issue of welfare state convergence has reappeared on the social policy research agenda in recent years. Several factors are assumed to create more or less universal policy responses throughout the industrialized world, usually in the form of the downsizing of redistributive budgets and the creation of more market-and work-friendly welfare states (1–8). One such factor is international demo-graphic shifts, another is increased economic globalization. A third factor that has recently received greater attention is European integration and the role of the European Union. Since at least the mid-1980s European integration has featured a social dimension alongside the pursuit of a single European market. Althoug