Competitiveness and solidarity in the history of the European Union, 1957–2017

Since 1957, the EEC/EU has been founded on a balance between competitiveness and solidarity, which has materialized in three types of socio-economic policies: social-oriented, neo-mercantilist and market-oriented. Neo-liberal policies are a radical variant of the last category. Five different steps were identified between 1957 and 2017: ‘Embedded liberalism’, ‘the shock of the global’, the ‘Single Market’ period, ‘the end of history’, and ‘the crisis of Western globalization’.