This collection brings together contributors from different areas of European integration studies to take stock of how Community membership is reshaping the legal environment of welfare provision across Europe. The book opens with a historical analysis of the development of the welfare state, reflecting also upon the theoretical relationship between economic and social rights (Deakin). Subsequent chapters address the impact of primarily economic Treaty rules upon the national welfare societies, in particular, competition law (Temple Lang), state aids (Biondi and Rubini) and Economic and Monetary Union (Pani´ c). Another set of essays explores the recent expansion of individual rights to social support under Community law, together with the often difficult implications of this process for the traditional organisation of the Member States’ welfare systems, having particular regard to cross-border healthcare (Koutrakos, Wyatt, Montgomery), Union citizenship (Barnard, van der Mei, Dougan and Spaventa) and social security co-ordination (Pennings). The book then closes with an assessment of the shift from hard to soft law as a vehicle for the Community’s influence over the evolution of domestic welfare policies (Bernard).

This collection is by no means intended to provide an exhaustive statement of the law. Our aim is rather to convey something of the complexities, the opportunities and the controversies that result from the haphazard development of a system of multi-level social solidarity in the European Union.

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Link for ebook: SOCIAL WELFARE AND EU LAW 

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