One of the major challenges facing the welfare institutions after the European Union enlargement in 2004 is the unification of the diverse cultures, economic practices, social policies and health systems under one EU welfare state (Baldock et al., XXXXXXXXXXThis essay reviews the multifaceted aspects of this merge and their impact on the welfare policy and public health. It also analyses the threats and the marginal opportunities of the formation of the EU welfare state. The last section concludes.
II. The challenges of the EU welfare state
The European Union of 27 member states witnessed a new reshuffling of its infrastructure and development to integrate and absorb the competition of systems between the institutions (Baldock et al., XXXXXXXXXXThe integration of the union and opening the borders means that national states will high taxes will have to compete with lower taxes and those with a generous social system are expected to induce migration influx of the less privileged countries (Sinn, XXXXXXXXXXThe fears of the already established EU welfare states in the Western and Nordic countries was that migration of people and businesses from the poorer Easter countries will trigger preclusion measures and discrimination practices that could lead to erosion of the EU social welfare state (Kvit, XXXXXXXXXXIn the context of the social policy this would reflect aggravation of the risks that welfare regimes try to address: unemployment, poverty and social exclusion (Baldock et al., 2012).
In order to eliminate these risks and reduce integration barriers, Council Regulations were issued in order to enable mobility of benefits such as unemployment, sickness, invalidity, maternity, children, old age, and survivors of EU nationals across the Union; and to ensure that migrant workers in the host country receive the same entitlements as nationals (Kvit, XXXXXXXXXXHowever, these regulations increased the anxiety among the Western and Nordic countries and the fears from competition resulting in negative integration such as closure of their labor markets to migrants from Eastern Europe and restrictions of social benefits (ibid). Accordingly most of the affected countries by labor and poor refugees’ influx are the richer large EU states with universal welfare systems such as France and Germany.
However, Sinn XXXXXXXXXXargues that labor migration in principle provides good economic opportunity and a welfare maximizing factors provided the wages and the cost of social benefits are equal to the marginal productivity of labor in the host country. He supports his argument with the example of Polish workers leaving to Germany for work resulting in an increase in the GDP in Germany and overall European GDP despite the slighter decrease of the GDP in Poland due to the migration of its labor. The major critique to such an argument is that it does not consider the probability of Polish workers competing with the national German work force by accepting lower wages in Germany thus leading to an increased in unemployment and relative poverty in the host country.
The impact of the integration on health policy is the significant burden of health benefits and services to be provided to migrants in poorer health conditions or the emergence of new diseases or their quicker spreading due to elimination of borders among the EU countries (Merson et al., XXXXXXXXXXDespite the Maastricht Treaty which gave the European Community the charge to contribute in and coordinate their public health policies in order to improve social and health protection, the diversities are still far from being resolved (McKee et al., 1996 & Baldock et al., 2012).
III. Conclusion
This essay reviewed the challenges facing the EU states in their integration into a unified welfare regime. The diversities in social policies and outcomes have created fears and anxiety among Western European countries leading to erosion of the welfare regime. The major advantage was for the Eastern and Central European countries which were incentivized to improve their policies in order to meet the EU standards. There exist mixed feelings and thoughts about the viability of the EU as a sustainable economic entity due to internal socio-economic diversities and external political competition.
References
Baldock, J., Manning, N. P., & Vickerstaff, S XXXXXXXXXXSocial policy. 4th Edition. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Kvist, JJ (2004), 'Does EU enlargement start a race to the bottom? Strategic interaction among EU member states in social policy', Journal Of European Social Policy, 14, 3, p XXXXXXXXXX, [Online]. Available from: Scopus®, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 19 July 2013).
McKee, M, Mossialos, E, & Belcher, P (1996), 'The influence of european law on national health policy', Journal Of European Social Policy, 6, 4, p XXXXXXXXXX, [Online]. Available from: Scopus®, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 20 July 2013).
Merson, M, Black, R, & Mills, A (2006), International Public Health: Diseases, Programs, Systems, And Policies, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, [Online]. Available from: University of Liverpool Catalogue, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 20 July 2013).
Sinn, HW (2002), EU enlargement and the future of the welfare state, [Online]. Available from: www.cesifo-group.de/.../EU_Enlargement_Future__214048_de.pdf, (Accessed: 19 July 2013).