ABSTRACT
The development of an EU social policy faces three main challenges. The first lies in the fact that the impressive variety of EU social action and objectives do not easily lead to a coherent policy. Second, institutional and national interests present in the EU pose a serious challenge to achieving consensus on the social policy front. A third challenge arises from the context within which these decisions are to be made, that of European integration, defined as a new political and institutional ‘regime’ with a multitiered decision-making system. With these three obstacles in mind, European citizens cannot be sure of the type of social rights they will have and this raises many fundamental questions. What kind of social rights have been developed so far in the special political and institutional ‘regime’ which is the European Union and how comparable are they to existing national rights? Do these rights offer a real new window of opportunity for social integration and participation by European citizens? And can a dynamic for the implementation of social rights already be detected in the chaotic setting of EU social policy?
