Notre Europe's viewpoint | 30/08/2006 

In 2005, the revised Lisbon strategy brought about a generalised feeling of disenchantment to all those who support the idea that the European social dimension should be reinforced. The priority on Growth and Jobs has created a sharp division in the virtuous triangle of economic growth, employment and social cohesion, which framed the European project back in 2000, and to which the environment was added in 2002. Notre Europe's two latest publications - a policy brief on trends in Europe's social protection ("Is the juice worth the squeeze"� ) and the proceedings of its seminar on the European social model -, produced by Teresa Bomba, seek to draw the merits and limits of recent trends.

More recently, the European Commission has traced a reform in the running social processes at EU level, with the initiative of streamlining the objectives and action in social protection, thus articulating the European pensions strategy with the social inclusion process, and initiating a new common effort in health care services and long-term care. The policy brief calls the attention to the fact that the streamlining of the OMC (open method of coordination) processes in social policy remains one of the key EU instruments to reinforce a European social dimension, which now has a chance to prove its effectiveness in preserving and strengthening Social Europe. However, it also draws readers' attention to the fact that the steps recently taken towards streamlining processes should not detract us from the fact that intergovernmental instruments, such as the OMC in social policies, do not replace a wider common project, which at the moment is missing from the European sphere. The debates of the seminar on the European Social Model have reinforced the idea that Europe needs to improve rapidly the cooperation at EU level and to have a different vision for Lisbon, one that promotes a central European project.

Although the European Council last week has provided little evidence of hope, the Finnish presidency programme announces already further developments in the field, but it will not meet ambitious expectations unless it makes clear appropriate proposals to lay the foundations of Europe's social project.