ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) has been part and parcel of neo-liberal globalisation since the mid-1980s and the increasing restructuring around the four freedoms of the Internal Market, the convergence criteria of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as well as the almost exclusive focus on competitiveness within the Lisbon Strategy (Bieler, 2006: 9-14; Hager, 2009). The so-called Social Dimension of the EU provides flanking social measures at best, some even describe it as part of the market building process (Leibfried, 2005: 257, 262). Since its establishment in 1952, the EU has emerged as a state like structure with its own state project as the result of an increasing institutionalisation of policy-making at the European level. European integration focused initially on economic concerns, but over the years its competencies have been further extended into new areas including agriculture, social policy, monetary policy, environmental concerns and industrial relations. Unsurprisingly, the EU has increasingly become an additional arena for contesting policy-making for representatives of capital, but also trade unions and social and environmental NGOs and movements (Greenwood, 2007). Thus, it is important to analyse policy-making within the EU and assess whether new forms of alliances may be in a position to challenge neo-liberal restructuring successfully.
