The European Welfare states was found under the political social and economic principles that is to maintain peace especially after world war 11, to establish a European free market ,and in this case the state agree to take on a certain amount of responsibility in the provision of social welfare to the citizens (Spicker: n:d, Ivan: 2013)
The European Welfare states:
The continental welfare states like France, Belgium ,Netherlands, German and Australia is characterised by paying off of social problems, the Scandinavian welfare state which has Sweden, Denmark ,Finland advocates for the people’s right to work, state financing and organizing social benefits(Ivan:2013),and the German welfare state which has a social market economy where economic development is the key for social development(Picker:n:d)
The Anglo-Saxon welfare model which has countries like UK, Ireland guarantees a minimum standard of living ,social protection and provision of basic needs however UK which is under this welfare regime is reported to having low degrees of job protection i.e easy hiring and firing(Ivan:2013) which is not ideal for such states
The Meditation welfare state consists of countries like Portugal ,Italy ,Greece is characterised by limited basic principles like minimum income schemes but has the highest retirement benefit(Ivan:2013)
Pushing for a European welfare state:
Some of the European welfare state like the social democratic are on the way to collapsing because the unstable debts ,with the monetary policy’s failure many countries have borrowed to overcome their inability to raise all the needed money in the long run the debt burden is growing day by day(Roberts and Foster:2011)
Pushing for social policies was among the goals of EU welfare states but it’s still not clear about the harmonization of the national social polices within the EU and the only alliance is on the guidelines and flexible forms of implementation which leaves a little for divergence rather than convergence of the national social policy(Baldock:2012)
EU’s effort to harmonize the national social policy stalled in 1996,EU’s influence over social policies is still limited and restricted to areas more closer to social markets and the provision of services