The financial and economic crisis 2008/2009 and its burning consequences have the potential to alter the relationship of market and social policies in the European integration process. Traditionally, rather than against markets EU social policy has evolved with market integration and economic freedoms, but fiscal constraints and market-based evaluations seem to have altered the spaces for the development of European social policy. In order to understand these developments as well as what the future of the market-social policies relationship may be, a better knowledge of the actors, processes and outcomes impacting on the relationship is needed. In this panel, we focus on EU level developments and ask:

1)    Has social policy become a mere side-payment or has it acquired a more distinctive function in the overall objectives of EU institutions? What do we know about degree and context conditions of these developments?

2)    What does the resurgence of hierarchical and inter-governmental solutions (as in the case of financial surveillance) mean for coordinative and regulatory EU social policy? Did the governance mix of EU social policy change along with – or against – the increasingly hierarchical steering in EU economic governance?

3)    Has the relative power of economic and social actors shifted? What do we know about struggles within and between EU actors, institutions and ideas?

4)    What analytical frameworks may help capture the relationship between market and social policy in the EU political system? Do what extent have market imperatives determined a contraction of EU social policies?