Why the EU Has Such Feeble Social Policies: Fields and Political Work in the Case of Health

Within analysis of European integration, the distinction between a ‘social Europe’ and a ‘neo-liberal’ one blocks analysis of what and who have actually built the European Union (EU) of today. Similarly, an analysis solely in terms of EU vs member state competency does not further research in this area either. To better answer the question why the EU has such a feeble social policy one needs instead to embrace a political economy of European integration which simultaneously tackles the fields (Economic, Bureaucratic, Party political and Expertise) within which the possibility of EU social policy has been discussed, then how scales of government have affected these debates and negotiations. From there one can ascertain how and why the best-resourced actors involved have worked politically to narrow the definition of ‘the social’ as a European problem and restrict its instrumentation. This claim will be illustrated using empirical examples from the health industry in the early 1950s and 2010s