The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy by Mechthild Roos

Author:Mechthild Roos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030782337
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

4.6 Conclusion

The Communities’ free movement policy provided fertile ground for the EP to get involved in Community legislation, in spite of the only very thin Treaty basis for EP activism in that area. This chapter demonstrates the relevance of Community free movement policy for the EP’s gain in power in the area of social policy. Through the combination of HI and SI tools and concepts, this chapter provides an in-depth analysis of MEPs’ activism in the area of free movement, an activism that was driven by their pursuit of both political and institutional aims, and which resulted in an elevated impact of the EP in Community social policy. Neither of the two underlying theoretical approaches can explain the EP’s involvement in Community policy making concerning free movement to the same extent if applied individually: a purely sociological-institutionalist analysis can demonstrate why MEPs behaved in the way they did based on shared ideas and norms, and on their socialisation. It cannot, however, explain why certain procedures became institutionalised and others did not, and what (inter-)institutional dynamics constrained the realisation of the MEPs’ aims. An analysis applying only the toolbox of historical institutionalism allows for an understanding of these processes and dynamics, but cannot provide insights into the origins of MEPs’ activism, and the reasons for their persistence in pushing for more integration in the area of free movement. In merging the two institutionalist approaches, this chapter therefore provides a more comprehensive understanding of MEPs’ activism within one of the most important and most regulated areas of Community social policy. It thus helps to answer the main research question underlying this book, in that it explains the EP’s gradual empowerment within this area as a result of MEPs’ behaviour based on shared ideas on the one hand, and of path dependencies and processes of gradual institutional change on the other.

The chapter shows that MEPs’ activism paid off in two ways: on the one hand, the delegates managed to bring their institution’s powers closer to that of a typical Parliament in a liberal democracy, gaining in particular more legislative influence than provided by the Treaties in this policy area. On the other hand, the EP succeeded in improving European migrants’ living and working conditions beyond what had been envisaged by the Commission and the Council. Whether one of the MEPs’ overarching aims in this policy area—namely to improve the citizens’ opinion of and identification with the Communities through freedom of movement—actually became a reality must be the subject of further research.

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