The coming years will be decisive for the European project. Will it rise to the challenge of reconfirming its commitment to a Social Europe and thereby live up to its expectations, or will it head towards a flatter and less ambitious horizon? In the face of globalisation, will Europe strive to consolidate its achievements such as fundamental rights, social and environmental standards within what is now an enlarged Union or will it sacrifice them in the global race to be competitive?

Published by the ETUI-REHS, the OSE (European Social Observatory/Observatoire social européen) and SALTSA (the joint research programme run by the Swedish confederations of employees and Sweden's National Institute for Working Life), the book highlights the tension between these two opposing forces: the drive to maintain Europe's model of economic and social development and the drive to remove perceived obstacles to international competitiveness.

The publication includes a chapter by ETUI-REHS expert Laurent Vogel entitled "Is health and safety policy being hijacked in the drive for competitiveness"?

Foreword by Christophe Degryse et Philippe Pochet

Table of contents