Authors Iain Begg | Gabriel Glöckler | Anke Hassel ... - The Europaeum

conditionality! EU funds will not be truly effective as financial incentives
without an outcomes-based system, underpinned by policy conditionality
rather than the verification of expenditure. This implies the devolution, to
a certain extent, of financial management and control from the Commission
to the member states.
Implementing Social Europe at 27:
differentiation and governance
The credibility of Social Europe rests on the better delivery of reforms and
innovation, and on meaningful mutual learning. Although past successes
are undeniable, there is also considerable room for improvement. Policy
development of Social Europe at EU27 is possible − but only by accepting
that implementation and progress in European integration requires some
form of differentiation. It is difficult to formulate policies − or even policy
statements − that are meaningful for 27 member states and that at the
same time represent neither a banality nor a vague middle ground. For
example, what is the operational value of an EU objective of 60% female
employment rate by 2010, if today’s rates range from 37% to 73%?
Addressing this problem to date has involved formulating, ambivalent,
increasingly general and convoluted opinions, guidelines, and declarations.
A method which might possibly ensure both a common framework and
the acknowledgement of different realities could be to follow more openly,
formally and systematically the steps of the flexicurity approach as spelled
out by the Commission: a) establish broad common strategic goals on
social policy with qualitative and/or quantitative targets; b) agree common
principles or a common framework of broad policy issues for member
states to take into account when formulating their national policies; c)
establish a limited number of pathways/clusters that take the situations
and challenges of the different types of welfare regimes of member states
into account in policy formulation and sequencing.
Similarly, while the merits of common EU targets are undisputed, more
attention should be given to member states’ starting positions and rate of
progress.
Social Europe in the global age
In the midst of the Great Depression, Simon Kutznets, Nobel laureate and
pioneer of development economics, stated before the US Congress that
“the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of
national income”. Three quarters of a century later, GDP is still widely
used as a definition of growth even if it measures activity and transactions
Chapter 7 – Xavier Prats-Monné 113