National Crisis Management and Anglo-Irish Enlargement

During the late 1960s EC social policy experienced a brief revival. At the Hague summit in December 1969, German Chancellor Willy Brandt made a strong case for EC social policy and the involvement of labour and management in economic and social decisions of the Community (Brewster and Teague, 1989: 66), consistent also with his domestic political preference for 'konzertierte Aktion' at the time. This sparked the creation of the European

Regional Development Fund and the reform of the Structural Funds, which had initially been a demand of the UK in their first rounds of accession negotiations to help neutralize their net contributions to the common agricultural policy. When the governments of the Six decided to put the Werner plan (1970) for monetary union on the agenda against a background of economic decline and industrial conflict in a number of Member States, a window of opportunity presented itself. Starting that year, the Commission launched a series of Social Action Programmes, which also served as a basis for a boom in legislative initiatives. Moreover, rulings by the European Court of Justice on the direct operation of Section 119 (equal pay) supported the harmonization ambitions of the Commission. Furthermore, the groundwork was laid for European regional development funds for improving socio-economic cohesion in Europe. It was anticipated that the establishment of a monetary union would have to be counterbalanced by a strong regional policy, to soften the blow of intensified competition (Geyer, 2000: 36).

Following 1974, European integration progressed more slowly. The Member States of the European Community experienced the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, triggering highly divergent responses of national crisis management across the EC, including protectionist pressures. This brought an end to the erstwhile benign policy compromise of homegrown Keynesianism and outward-looking classical economics. The naive expectations of spontaneous social convergence, supported by harmonized social policy coordination, rapidly dissipated. Disregarding the striking renationalization of social and economic policy, the Commission continued to use its limited authority to promote the social dimension of the labour sphere. Based on the general fundamentals of harmonization contained in Article 100a EC (now Art. 94 EC), guidelines pertaining to conditions in the workplace were agreed upon. Eventually the aim of harmonization encountered the strong opposition of three Member States that joined in 1973: the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Denmark. Because their welfare traditions and institutions differed fundamentally from the dominant Continental model, policymakers, particularly in Denmark and Britain, rapidly became outspoken opponents of every form of European legislation that could be seen as detrimental to national autonomy in social policy (Hantrais, 2000: 24). They continually challenged the creative measures initiated by the Commission and the Court in developing the social Acquis, resisting any further deepening of the union throughout the 1970s and 1980s. A secondary reason behind the overall weakness of European social policy in the 1970s was that natural supporters, such as trade unions and parties of the left, shifted their political energies on national crisis management predicaments.