Rethinking the Role of Employment and Social Policy Coordination Competences in a Deeper Economic Union

Abstract

The close interaction between Europe 2020 Strategy and the revamped European economic governance has resulted in far-reaching changes in the implementing procedures for coordinating economic, social and employment policies, and their interrelationships. This article examines how economic coordination has gradually spread throughout some crucial aspects of social and employment policy, even overriding their respective coordination procedures. The contrast between this situation and the TFUE provisions describing the scope of the three competences concerned highlights that there is overreach in the use of the competence for coordinating economic policies. However, the strong boost of economic integration requires that these changes should be regarded as a journey of no return, whose new challenges should be tackled at the EU constitutional level, providing the opportunity to rebalance the social content of the Economic Union.