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68 | Zsófia Kollányi
CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter, we focused on the issue of social inegualities, welfare, and
well-being in the EU, and the debates regarding the policy, and especially
social policy measures the community could take in order to handle these.
We presented the most freguently used diverging definitions as well as the
current main streams of political debates.
Clearly, several relevant areas had to be omitted. We did not cover the
strictly macroeconomic aspects of welfare, how economic growth and
economic policy may affect it; neither did we present the welfare effects and
critigues towards the utilisation of the structural and cohesion funds, the
main tools of the Union to mitigate regional inequalities.
From the debates about the role and weight of the social dimension in
European policy, a deep controversy takes shape. On the one hand, greater
influence of the EU on the formulation of social policy measures currently
defined at a national level would sharply contradict the current principles
of subsidiarity and national sovereignty, and would question national fiscal
policy as a possibility. However, on the other hand, the lack of such measures,
considering the enormous income disparities between the Member States,
could lead to an increasing disintegration of the community.
Besides the fact that inequality needs to be more clearly defined and
understood, the only certain point is that the status quo in the EU is very
probable to be about to change. The integration either gets further enhanced
in order to mitigate the underlying political and social tensions, or these
tensions might even tear the European project apart.
Key concepts and terms
At-risk-of-poverty rate
Employment rate
European Pillar of Social Rights
European Social Model (Social Europe)
Income quintile share ratio
Material deprivation
Median income
Social inequality
Universal basic income
Welfare