“…In this image, Social Europe is technocratically re‐engineered to ensure that market competitiveness is promoted through, rather than jeopardized by, social policy and de‐commodification of labor: social policy is a function for the common market. Accordingly, Social Europe is connected to austerity frameworks, such as the Economic and Monetary Union and the European Semester, established to ensure that MS adhere to fiscal discipline, hard currencies, low inflation, sound budgets, debt reduction, and re‐commodification of labor (Armstrong, ; Copeland & Daly, ; Crespy & Menz, ; Preece, ; Van Kersbergen & Hemerijck, ; Woolfson & Sommers, ). Given such austerity frameworks, “social” issues such as unemployment and poverty have a lower priority than fiscal consolidation and promoting competitiveness.…”