The European Social Model - loosely defined as a robust welfare system providing protection to all citizens and limiting economic inequality - is a fundamental part of what Europe stands for.
Over the last 20 years, the EU has not achieved the ambitious economic goals set down in the Lisbon Agenda of 2000. Confidence in the EU’s capability to be the world’s foremost knowledge-based economy has been shaken, and the sustainability of its social model brought into question.
The answer is not to discard the European social model under the mistaken belief that a low-tax economy is the only way to remain competitive. Instead, the European post-industrial social model must evolve. The pillars of a renewed model should be preventative welfare and investment in human capital.
The classical welfare state is a system of risk-management; protection against disease, ignorance, poverty and unemployment when they occur. In the post-industrial countries these negatives should be replaced by a set of positives: active health, continuing education, and prosperity. Social policy should focus on achieving these goals through a positive, or pre-emptive, welfare approach.
This would include:
-
Heavy investment in early years education, preventing poverty before it occurs.
-
Investment in continuing education and training, creating a more flexible workforce, and facilitating transitions between diverse jobs.
-
A flexible labour market. Not American-style ‘hire and fire’, but a labour force adequately trained to allow workers to move between jobs as technological change demands requires.
-
Incentives and sanctions to achieve healthier lifestyles, shifting towards preventative healthcare.
-
Employment insurance, rather than unemployment insurance. Benefits would take effect before the individual becomes unemployed, by facilitating time out to enhance employability through extra training or education.
-Policies addressing not just the ‘poor’ - those below the poverty line - but those close to being impoverished.
- Older people must be persuaded or motivated to stay in work longer. ‘Old age’ should not represent a cut-off point beyond which people are prevented from working.
Such a set of social policies must be extended across Europe if the EU is to equip itself for an economic future without sacrificing its social model.
comments