European Integration and Path Dependence: Explaining the Evolution of EU Social Policy. European Political Economy Review. Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter 2005-2006), pp. 87-111

This paper argues that explaining the development of EU social policy requires an understanding of the role of European business. It asserts that EU social policy remains dependent on the willingness of economic actors, centred on the European Roundtable of Industrialists and UNICE, to facilitate steps towards a more cohesive social policy framework. The paper shows the path dependent nature of the EU integration process and the limited ability of European trade unions to reach far-reaching agreements with employers on the basis of the latter’s powerful position as the instigator of the EU’s revival in the 1980s