Social Policy and Aid, Trade and Economic Development of the EU

Welfare state: General objective: improve human living conditions Actions: state-sponsored programmes. Concrete purposes: - Preventing/Alleviating poverty - Redistributing income across the life course - Offset special needs of groups with disables people and families

In the EU the nation-state remains responsible for providing and financing social services and social transfers. Welfare regimes: - Government can establish specialized public agencies - Governement outsources provisions to private organizations Tax financed social trasfers account for between 10-20% of GDP of EU Member countries Gross vs disposable income

Three types of welfare: Liberal Celebrate property/ market Liberal regimes impose a line between self-reliant citizens and those that depend on the State (Puritanism) Education-Health care: marked by the class division Social security/Social housing: protect the poor Flexible labour market Governements: trade-off between pressure for increased social expenditure and low level of tax tolerance.

Three types of welfare: Conservative Capitalism is welcomed as an engine of economic growth but social transfers are used to compensate market losers and preserve social cohesion. Interventions are managed by representatives of employers and workers. Social democratic regimes: social insurance and social partnership are in an egalitarian scheme of social citizenship. The State plays a primary role in providing citizens with highest suitable degree of income secuity and high quality services.

Three types of welfare: Social democratic system Social transfers are designed to foster social solidarity based on commitment to the ideal of pepole’s home. All citizens are entitled to a tax-financed basic retirement pension with earning related pensions (unitary national insurance scheme).

What’s about EU ? Differences across EU regimes: very complicated to harmonize Countries with generous social standards are less prone to scale down their workers’ entitlements to social benefits Publishing some EU Directives...

Future perspectives: Families are increasingly fragile Motherhood and employment status Social exclusion Retirement scheme

Aid, Trade and Economic Development

EU position in the international network: Historical ‘heritage’ : France and UK have a network of low/medium income economies Aids: - Recipients accepts for a variety of reasons - Scope: develop a project or addressed to an agency

Lines of interventions: Complementarieties with other programmes implemented by the EU countries. Coordination between EU and Member States Coherence and consistency of all external activity Mainstream objectives: Promotion of Human Rights, gender equality, environment... Infrastructures Preferential Trade Agreements.

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