With the more serious involvement of countries in the European Union, with the implementation of the Euro as the crux of the economic issues of the EU, it is high time for the consideration of social issues. For, as the author makes clear, a single currency does not remove the disparity between the social protection systems in the current member states. And if there is to be equal opportunities throughout, it is not merely business that should benefit from this unification, but society as a whole. It is this issue that is being constantly pushed to the side, because those desiring progress realize its complexity. This book deals with past, present and future social developments in the European Union: the crisis of social protection, how to pay for pensions and medical treatment and care, the role of the unions, the risk of social dumping and the risk of uncontrolled forces of the market or other taking the lead of change. Soft policies, such as of "open method co-ordination" as endorsed by the European Council, are not firm enough to steer a stable course. Now that social issues are becoming more urgent in the Monetary Union, we feel the pain: distortions of competition caused by the disparity in social protection systems and wage policy can no more be corrected by changes in exchange rates and pockets of unemployment are the result.
The point now is how to come to harmonisation of the present fifteen social systems, by preference before new countries join the European Union, if not, directly thereafter. This book shows the way.