Gränslös välfärd? En studie om den europeiska integrationen har nått området välfärd genom sysselsättningspolitiken

Sammanfattning: Social policy has now received an increased attention in the European Union. The European welfare states experience a high level of unemployment, which the EU now tries to handle through the European Employment Strategy (EES). The core of this essay is whether the welfare institutions of the European member states are integrating through an institutionalization process or not. Within the EU four different types of welfare models can be identified: the Scandinavian, the Continental, the Southern and the Anglo-Saxon. The welfare models differ in the institutional settings e.g. who is providing for welfare: the state, the market or the family, which can be shown in the welfare triangle. Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom and Portugal are all representing one each of these welfare models. By studying the individual National Action Plans (NAP); ambitions of integration by revising the model and reaching harmonization can be found. Can we find a beginning of an institutionalization process that will change the basic welfare institutions? The result of the research is that three of the four countries are approaching each other, where the market plays the central role as the provider of welfare.