The Janus faces of European policy

Abstract

The current Eurocrisis has demonstrated the ambiguity of ‘European social policy’, where, as the Greek case shows, the only place in European Union law where some form of ‘solidarity’ is supposed to exist, i.e. ‘social policy’, has no direct concern with it. The absence of solidarity at a time when it is most needed can be explained by persisting national diversity, and the incapacity of the system to generate political consensus, leading to the greatest outbreak of nationalistic political activity since the Second World War.