Introduction

The deepening of European integration has institutionalised several mechanisms within the Eurozone, most importantly through the abolition of tariff and trade barriers as well as the linking of labour market and social policy to the macroeconomic benchmark management of the Economic and Monetary Union. At the beginning of the 1990s, the institutionalisation of the common market again marked the entry into a new phase –one that was once more characterised by an even stronger European orientation, also with regard to trade unions themselves. According to Hyman, “Social Europe” is an analytical category, an ideological construct, as well as a controversy. The integration of ever more European countries into an ever-institutionally deepening common market has always been the cornerstone of European integration, famously coined by the heads of states and government in 1981 as a “commitment to progress towards an ever closer union”. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.