Constructing Europe: The Role of Social Solidarity

Unlike other regional integration projects, the European Community/Union1 has a social dimension. From the outset, that dimension was part of the conception of the Communities — as a pre-condition for and corollary of market-building. However, much ambivalence has surrounded the social aspect of the communities — the ‘European social model’ is regarded by some as a protectionist, inflexible burden of the past; the liberal economic regimes of the EU are there to remedy such ills. For others, the very same model is the epitome of human achievement in the field of community and state-building.