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Published by Social Europe Publishing and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Berlin and London, 2020.

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Open Foreword

With the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union, it is appropriate to reflect on the future social pathways now open to the European Union, made more possible perhaps by the UK's exit. For example, could Brexit result in an EU in which considerations of social citizenship and rights are elevated up the agenda in Brussels? Could the EU's focus hitherto on ever-closer economic union and international competitiveness be shifted towards the European Pillar of Social Rights so as to strengthen it, make it more tangible in citizens' lives and central to a renewed EU agenda? A reinvigorated social Europe may yet arise from the Covid-19 pandemic and its tragic consequences owing to a widespread, recovered recognition, not only of the state's positive role in managing such crises, but of how it can play a decisive, transformative role in our lives for the better.

This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on

Open Introduction

Introduction

Matthew Donoghue and Mikko Kuisma

To say that 2020 has been a turbulent year would be an understatement. Our societies and economies worldwide have been dominated by the Covid-19 crisis. All of us—not least policy-makers and politicians—have a lot to learn from the successes and failures of the management of the pandemic. Yet even a crisis of this magnitude has not stopped other crucially important political processes and events from happening. Implementation of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has loomed large and, although the lead-up to December 31st has been overshadowed by the coronavirus, the European continent and the EU were, at time of writing, about to feel the consequences of ‘Brexit’—deal or no deal.

There has been no shortage of coverage, journalistic and academic, of the causes and effects of Brexit. The overwhelming focus has been on international trade, international relations and debates—arguments even—around ‘national sovereignty’. The major sticking-poin

Open Imagined Solidarities: Brexit, Welfare, States, Nations and the EU

Imagined Solidarities: Brexit, Welfare, States, Nations and the EU

Daniel Wincott

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Health Service had a status akin to a shared secular religion in the UK. To borrow Benedict Anderson’s evocative phrase, the NHS is a focus for ‘imagined community’. For Anderson (1991: 6), every nation is an imagined community ‘because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or hear of them—yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion’. Of course, the particular values, institutions, laws and symbols of imagined community differ across nations.

The nation is however not the only political frame or scale in and at which community might be imagined—from the local to the European. Nation and state are different concepts. More clearly than some other states, the United Kingdom has a pluri-national character. How does the UK state relate to the imagined national communities attached to Britishness or

Open The UK and the EU After Brexit – How Hard or Soft a Landing?

The UK and the EU After Brexit – How Hard or Soft a Landing?

Vivien Schmidt

The future of both the United Kingdom and the European Union are in question, and not just because of Brexit. The eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, the ongoing security crisis and now the Covid-19 pandemic have been equally problematic. How Brexit happens, whether very hard or somewhat soft, will certainly have a significant impact on the EU. But, equally importantly, the future of European integration—its form and content—will also have an impact on the UK, not just in terms of economics and trade but also with regard to social rights.

For optimal results, the future of the EU is best conceived as differentiated with a ‘soft’ rather than hard core, constituted by different clusters of members in overlapping policy communities. But the EU has to change not only the conceptualisation of its form, by becoming more open to greater differentiation of membership in its many policy communities. It must also rethink the appli

Open Reconceptualising and Delivering Social Policy: Competing Challenges in (Post-)Brexit and Pandemic Europe

Reconceptualising and Delivering Social Policy: Competing Challenges in (Post-)Brexit and Pandemic Europe

Linda Hantrais

Before the installation of the new European Commission in December 2019 and the conclusion of the Withdrawal Agreement in January 2020, social scientists speculated about the implications that Brexit might have for EU and UK social policy (Hantrais, 2019). Ursula von der Leyen’s commission assumed office at the same time as the Conservative government led by Boris Johnson opened a new parliament with a substantially increased majority. These leadership changes created the conditions needed for the Withdrawal Agreement to be ratified on January 31st. The post-Brexit transitional phase in the negotiations could then begin. Workers’ rights, freedom of movement and state aid were identified at the outset as areas for potential disagreement between the UK and EU institutions. Neither side anticipated the global threat that would be posed by the Covid-19 pandemic nor its longer-term impa

Open Faultlines of EU Social Citizenship in the Course of Brexit

Faultlines of EU Social Citizenship in the Course of Brexit

Stefanie Börner

The Brexit vote can be seen as ‘the most vivid and dramatic expression of Euroscepticism’ (Room, 2020: 111). The vote-leave campaign’s successful ‘take-back-control’ slogan secured a victory for identity politics, ending the freedom of movement (FoM) between the United Kingdom and the European Union and thus turning ‘mobile’ EU citizens into ‘migrants’ (Antonucci and Varriale, 2020: 49). Yet, its narrative of ‘take back control’ also pointed to how European integration had generated extremely uneven experiences. Many Brexiters experienced the Europe-wide economic, political and social interdependencies triggered by European integration as an unbalanced relationship of exploitation. Social scientists must thus critically reassess such cherished certainties as Karl Deutsch’s transactional-ist paradigm. For Deutsch, and legions of researchers following in his footsteps, thriving common-market transactions and increasing transnat

Open Solidarity for Whom? Selective Social Rights in a Post-Brexit Welfare Settlement

Solidarity for Whom? Selective Social Rights in a Post-Brexit Welfare Settlement

Daniel Edmiston

We are, once again, at an important juncture in the European project and the mainstreaming of social priorities through European integration. Often described as ‘the last chance for social Europe’, the 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights presents an opportunity to transform the reach and impact of European Union social policy. It remains to be seen, however, whether its broad (and at times vague) ambitions will amount to substantive progress in the fulfillment of social rights or the more usual co-option of EU social priorities by macroeconomic agendas.

Indeed, many have expressed concern that the pillar is suffering the same fate as prior activities and funding instruments, with instrumentalisation and poor implementation compromising its potential to protect and extend the social rights of European citizens. Moreover, inherent ambiguities emerge from the pillar’s focus and framing: the capacity fo

Open The Rising Invisible Majority in Need of New Social Rights

The Rising Invisible Majority in Need of New Social Rights

Emanuele Ferragina and Alessandro Arrigoni

Only 15 years ago it would have been difficult to envisage the current European political landscape: the decline of mainstream political parties, the rise of new challengers on the right and left, the crisis of European Union institutions in the wake of austerity policies and centrifugal tendencies such as Brexit. The consequences of the 2008 financial crisis have strongly affected the continent and are often invoked to explain the challenges traversing Europe at the political and social levels. Despite the relevance of this crisis, however, one has also to examine the long-term challenges posed by the transformation of European societies.

To do so, we have developed the notion of the ‘rising invisible majority’ to explore the interconnections between the political economy and the changing composition of society. This concept charts a similar if differently paced transformation across Europe thro

Open Never Waste a Good Crisis: Solidarity Conflicts in the EU

Never Waste a Good Crisis: Solidarity Conflicts in the EU

Stefan Wallaschek and Monika Eigmüller

‘Make Solidarity Great Again’—this was the campaign slogan of the Danish non-governmental organisation Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke as well as the electoral message of the German leftist youth organisation Linksjugend Sachsen in 2017. It could also have been the Leitmotif of the European Union, which stresses solidarity in numerous contexts. Not only are solidarity issues fundamentally inscribed in European treaties and represented in numerous policy areas—energy, foreign affairs, migration and asylum policy—but the need for internal EU solidarity is explicitly affirmed in the ‘solidarity clause’ (article 222) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which upholds mutual solidarity among member states in the face of natural catastrophe or terrorist attack, and in the dedicated ‘solidarity’ section of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In fact, it now seems

Open Uncertain Futures of Post-Brexit Pensions: Three Paradoxical Implications

Uncertain Futures of Post-Brexit Pensions: Three Paradoxical Implications

Bernhard Ebbinghaus

In facing the pandemic, the state of healthcare has been foremost in the minds of the British public—in particular, many older people. The lockdown across the United Kingdom which began in March 2020 seemed to have pushed Brexit into the background, as if Brexit had ‘got done’ by the UK’s formal exit from the European Union on January 31st. Just months ahead of the transition, to be completed on December 31st, the outcome of post-Brexit negotiations between the government and the EU however remained far from clear.

Yet one topic hardly mentioned during the last three years of Brexit negotiations is indeed among the most consequential—pensions. This is paradoxical because older British voters, who were more in favour of Brexit than other age groups, are likely to suffer most, as Brexit drives British social policy towards market liberalism and reshapes financialisation in the UK and indirectly across Euro

Open Brexit and EU Migrant Workers in the UK: Polish Women’s Perspective

Brexit and EU Migrant Workers in the UK: Polish Women’s Perspective

Eva A Duda-Mikulin

The issue of immigration was a decisive factor in the debates before the Brexit referendum and it is still one of the most divisive topics in the UK (during normal times rather than those preoccupied with a global pandemic). Yet while the British people had an opportunity to have their say on Brexit, migrant workers from the European Union did not.

In a recent book (Duda-Mikulin, 2019), I present the voices of women from Poland, giving them the opportunity to be heard. It is based on 40 qualitative interviews (including eight repeats) with female Polish nationals, who are or were migrants to the UK, conducted before and after the Brexit vote. I spoke to migrants and return migrants—the latter having spent at least six months in the UK before going back to Poland.

Wider policy issues arise for the British and EU countries’ authorities. These include the need for migrant labour in the context of ageing societ

Open Whither Irish Citizens’ Social Rights in Post-Brexit Europe?

Whither Irish Citizens’ Social Rights in Post-Brexit Europe?

Michelle Norris and Michael L Collins

The decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union carries significant consequences for the island of Ireland. Irrespective of the details of any final EU-UK agreement, there is no doubt that Brexit will have enormous implications for businesses, trade and the economy, governments and policy-makers, and also for citizens of Ireland. Geography and history have forged close economic and social ties between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which have been strengthened and extended by the open borders, trade and travel enabled by these jurisdictions’ EU membership since 1973. The UK’s withdrawal from the EU will disrupt these ties and will require the introduction of alternative legal and policy arrangements and services to facilitate continued co-operation and economic and social links between Ireland and the UK. Policy and legal adjustments will also be needed to ma

Open The EU’s Work-Life Balance Directive: A Lost Opportunity for the UK in Gender Equality?

The EU’s Work-Life Balance Directive: A Lost Opportunity for the UK in Gender Equality?

Caroline de la Porte, Trine Larsen and Dorota Szelewa

Adequate leave policies can enable men and women to combine labour market participation and childrearing responsibilities. The European Union’s work-life-balance directive (WLBD)—a revision and renaming (2019/1158) of the parental leave directive from 2010—aims to facilitate the combination of work and family life, especially promoting the involvement of fathers / secondary carers in care activities in the private sphere.

There are major gaps in the UK’s work-life balance policy, which could have been addressed via the WLBD, were the UK still an EU member state. These include earmarked parental leave, which, if accompanied by generous replacement rates, often leads to fathers / secondary carers becoming more engaged in childrearing responsibilities. This, in turn, improves the likelihood of retaining women in the labour market, as well as having equalising

Open Taking Back Control? Big Business and the Welfare State

Taking Back Control? Big Business and the Welfare State

Kevin Farnsworth

One of the clarion calls of the 2016 referendum campaign against the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union was ‘take back control’. Given structural economic factors, coupled with powerful business actors, this was however always likely to be no more than a slogan. Post-referendum, as power is being repatriated it is also being redistributed away from citizens and government—and towards big business.

Governments and citizens depend on the ability of nation-states to capture and retain private investment. The aggregate investments of businesses are major determinants of production, consumption, employment, growth and tax revenues within capitalist economies (Gough, 1979; Lindblom, 1977; Offe and Ronge, 1984; Hacker and Pierson, 2002). Foreign direct investment from multinational companies is an important part of the mix but how important depends on the economy in question. Some nations are more heavily dependent o

Open Contributors

Contributors

Alessandro Arrigoni is an independent researcher and holds a PhD in European and international studies from King’s College London, UK.

Stefanie Börner is an assistant professor in sociology and European integration at the Department of Social Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Germany.

Micheál L Collins is an assistant professor of social policy, School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Matthew Donoghue is an assistant professor and Ad Astra fellow in social policy, School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Eva A Duda-Mikulin is a lecturer in inclusion and diversity, Faculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford, UK.

Bernhard Ebbinghaus is a professor of social policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and senior research fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK. He is also an associate member of N