A Further Comment on Wolfgang Streeck's 'European Social Policy after Maastricht'

Abstract

The general argumentation of Wolfgang Streeck's paper (1994) is the following. First, on the basis of a historical analysis, he tries to show that the social policy carried out at European community level has until now produced very few and poor results. Second, he identifies the reasons for such a situation essentially in the very nature of intergovernmentalism and Member States' reluctance to engage themselves supranationally as far as social policy is concerned, and also in a total lack of interest on the part of European employers in 'centralized, market-correcting social policy or collective bargaining'. Third, given these premisses, it would be vain and naive, according to Streeck, to expect that the Maastricht Social Agreement (MSA) will induce any change of behaviour on the part of social and political actors responsible for the making of European social policy; as a consequence, its substantive content is not likely to be more full-fledged in the future.