Researches On The Development Of The Social Policy In European Union

The Social Policy of the European Union has its own special characteristics. This thesis, from the historic point of view, searches on the concrete way of development of the social policy of the EU, sums up the main characteristics of it, analyzes the main barriers which held it back. The Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC Treaty) , which has laid down some provisions to protect the interest of the workers in coal and steel industries, began the EU social policy. Afterwards the Treaty of Rome set the framework and basic principles of the EU social policy, which can be seen as the exact set-out of the EU social policy. The range and the objects of the social policy have been gradually enlarged comparative to the ECSC Treaty. At the same time, the Community built the European Social Fund, which sponsors the actions in social fields, and the Economy and Social Committee to give advice and information to the Council of Ministers. The 1960~1970s saw the emergence of sundry of the second legislations from the Council of Ministers or the Commission, which carried out the principles in the EC main Treaties and thus presented the development and practice of the social policy in this period. The main treaties and secondary legislations of EC/EU in 1980s and the aftermath both put forward the development of social policy. But the core social policies of the Member States have not been integrated till now. On the other hand the realization of the importance of an integrated social policy are increasing. The thesis holds that the primary reason that EU social policy came into being is to create a fair environment for the Member States and to solute the social problems caused by the economic integration. There are four main characteristics of the development of the EU social policy. The first is that it walked from comparatively vagueness, simplicity, abstraction, and narrowness to clearness, abundance, concrete and broadness. The second is the co-existence of the diversity and integration, especially the later. The third is the social policy has gone to a more important position than ever. And the fourth is the EU people have realized the importance of the integration of the social policy and paid much attention to it. However, the integration of the EU social policy has always been blocked. The barriers include the following five: 1) the differences of the social policies of the Member States which have experienced much different historic processes; 2) the imbalance of the economies through the member states, including the imbalance between the developed and the underdeveloped member states, the rich regions andthe poor regions within EU; 3) the differences of the social security systems among the member states; 4) the incite shortcomings of the function mechanism in EU, particularly the dominating theory of intergovernmentalism and its by-products -the unanimous principle and subsidiarity principle; and 5) other reasons such as the persist slowness of the EU economy, the reunion of the Germany, which forces the west to largely invest to the east. In summary EU social policy, after walking a long and very difficult way, has gained much achievements, but it still dose not develop to full, furthermore the easternward enlargement of EU will also makes the burden of the social policy integration more heavy. A complete integration of the social policy is very difficult to reach.