Der EU-Verfassungsvertrag und die Zukunft des Wohlfahrtsstaates in Europa = The EU Constitutional Treaty and the Future of the Welfare State in Europe. EU-ISS Political Science Series: No. 99, October 2004

The welfare states in Europe are confronted with a twofold challenge. Both internal changes such as the ageing of our societies and external developments such as globalisation and European economic integration are threatening the viability of many welfare state policies. What can the European Union do to support domestic welfare states in coping with these challenges? The paper first provides an overview of the historical evolution of EU social policy and its current state of affairs. Then, it presents the innovations in the areas of social policy introduced by the EU’s constitutional treaty and discusses their likely effects. The new provisions may be used to loosen the tight grip of the EU’s internal market rules on domestic welfare states, and they offer ample opportunities for the ECJ to further the development of supranational social regulation by case law. In order to explain these outcomes, the paper analyses the controversial debates in the European Convention, revealing that the cleavages within the Convention ran along national but also to a significant degree along party political lines