INTRODUCTION

Relying on the tripartite framework of Cohen and Arato, this book takes the view that civil society should be seen as a pluralist sphere of participation between state and market wherein deliberative democracy realises its full potential. Democratisation proceeds whenever civil society manages to assert influence over state and market without falling prey to their colonising tendencies. This emancipatory process has so far taken place within the context of national welfare states. The fundamental question raised by the turn to civil society is whether multilevel social Europe will continue this emancipatory process or, on the contrary, bring about its collapse under the colonising forces of power and money. This raises two sets of questions which have been explored in detail through the case studies contained in Chapters 4 to 7, the first pertaining to the reflexive tendencies of European economic law and the second to the participatory-democratic credentials of social Europe.

Whether multilevel social Europe protects civil society from state and market forces is an issue that cannot be fully addressed without answering a last question relating to the effectiveness of EU social law and policy making. In line with our tripartite framework, assessing the effectiveness of social Europe comes down to asking whether it is strong enough to protect civil society from the colonising tendencies of European economic integration. This issue necessarily comes at the end of our inquiry and finds itself deeply intertwined with the two previous questions. What social Europe must achieve in order to provide effective protection against markets very much depends on the constraints negative integration imposes on civil society in the first place. What social Europe can legitimately hope to achieve very much hinges upon its ability to draw democratic support from its dialogue with civil society. This final chapter is therefore an opportunity to bring the threads of this book together.

Looking back, this book’ findings as to the reflexive capacity of European economic law (8.2) and democratic support available for social Europe (8.3) will be summarised. The limits of those findings will be exposed as well as their relevance for the issue of effective social Europe. Moving forward, the effectiveness of multilevel social Europe will be appraised through a preliminary assessment of the achievements of the hard CM and the soft OMC.