A social Europe
The term «social dimension» is making a comeback in the international political and economic vocabulary after a long snub in the apogee of neo-liberal policies. The European Council meeting in Brussels earlier this month reaffirmed the importance of the EU’s social dimension, stressing the need to fight poverty and social exclusion. Critics slammed the Council’s conclusions as «wishful thinking» or, from a different point of view, as «an attempt to pull the wool over workers’ eyes.» As Thomas Ferenczi recently commented in the Le Monde newspaper, references to the importance of social dimension contained in the early drafts of the conclusions were dropped only to reappear in the final text. One may assume that the reference is substantial even if the eventual wording must have been the result of extensive bargaining among the different EU peers. That said, there is no European treaty safeguarding a single European social blueprint that could hence guarantee the latest pledges about a social dimension. As always, there is a huge chasm that separates the views and objectives of those who favor a perhaps less growth-oriented empowerment of Europe’s social policy and the more pragmatic proponents of economic reform. In Greece, social policies tend to enter the public debate in pre-election periods and are still far from becoming standard practice. If there is one person who is steadily talking about the need for social justice, it is President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias. In his two years in office, he has not tired of emphasizing the significance of social rights that have so often been overlooked by some human rights advocates. On March 15, Papoulias reminded us that the right to work is foreseen by the Constitution. Let’s hope that a brighter future lies ahead, for all of us.
