ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to present the political fields, to provide grounds for the puzzles studied in their respective contexts, and to set out the methodological framework of the study. The freedom to provide services is, aside from the free traffic of goods and capital and the freedom of movement of people in the EU, a basic principle of economic integration. During his election campaign, designated President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker claimed that all employees in the EU are entitled to “have an income from work sufficient to ensure that they don’t have to go to the social security office.” The strengthening of the European level as an independent place of negotiation and regulation could, according to Schulten and Watt, lead to the displacement of decision-making competence. As Hopner and Schafer note, free access to the service markets of the EU member states has “different consequences for high wage economies than core countries with a relatively low wage level.”.
