EU social policy and the governance architecture of Europe 2020

Kenneth A Armstrong
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Kenneth A Armstrong: School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2012, vol. 18, issue 3, 285-300

Abstract: As the successor to the decade-long Lisbon agenda, Europe 2020 is the European Union’s 10-year strategy for ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ growth. This article analyses the ‘governance architecture’ of this new agenda, and, more particularly, its social dimension. Insofar as Europe 2020 has a social dimension it is located within a suite of thematic ‘flagship initiatives’, as well as within a policy coordination framework that, while building upon the Lisbon agenda’s governance architecture, now forms part of the European Semester framework. Whereas the flagship initiatives continue a long tradition of the deployment of non-legislative instruments and EU funds towards the EU’s social goals, the role to be played by the ‘open method of coordination’ as a ‘new’ post-Lisbon form of EU social governance remains unclear. Indeed, the risk is that political energy will be concentrated on policy coordination as a means of strengthening EU economic governance rather than as a vehicle for articulating a progressive social policy vision.

Keywords: Lisbon agenda; Europe 2020; Lisbon Treaty; European Semester; Community Method; governance; OMC; cohesion funds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:18:y:2012:i:3:p:285-300

DOI: 10.1177/1024258912448600

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