The Vanishing Promise of a More ‘Social' Europe : Public Services before and after the Debt Crisis

This paper deals with the causes and implications of lacking regulation at European level in the field of public services and utilities provision. It first explains why the ten-years-long debate on a framework directive aiming at re-regulating the provision of – in EU jargon – services of general interest at European level ended into a political deadlock. The impact of the debt crisis (and the responses to it) on public services provision in the Member States is assessed thus unveiling the implications of lacking regulation at EU level matters in times of crisis. Thus, this contribution shall improve our understanding as to why Social Europe fails to materialize into effective public policy at the European level. From an analytical point of view, the paper proposes an analytical framework inspired by discursive institutionalism that helps to explain how social policy ends up being subsumed to market imperatives in the course of political debates. Besides mere ideological dimensions involved with public services provision, the emphasis lies on the discursive construction of institutional constraints such as sectoral liberalization and subsidiarity.