Europeanization and Spanish Welfare: The Case of Employment Policy

Between the territory and the legacies: The politicization of active labour market policy in southern Europe

“…Southern European countries are considered as latecomers with regard to activation policies (Bonoli, 2013). The activation turn in Italy and Spain could be explained by referring to the European Commission’s European Employment Strategy (Jessoula and Alti, 2010; Moreno and Serrano, 2011). The advocacy of activation keywords and principles at the European level provided national political forces with cognitive resources and concepts that drove the political discourses about employment policy reforms towards ALMP and conditionality.…”

“…Besides, this transformation was strictly connected with EU membership. Indeed, the EU pressured Spain to redesign its welfare system in terms of activation, and such amelioration and expansion of the social protection system were accomplished by Spaniards in a context synonymous with democratic modernization (Moreno and Serrano, 2011). Regarding unemployment policy, disability pensions functioned as an early retirement mechanism for the unemployed in depressed regions, as in the Italian case.…”

“…Yet they were substituted by means-tested and contributory benefits as early as the end of the 1980s (García-Gómez et al, 2010). Activation thus has become a policy recipe that befits the whole country, with the ideological support of the European Employment Strategy (Moreno and Serrano, 2011).…”

“…All things considered, the reconfiguration of the Spanish state and of its social system has also recently incentivized political parties to include ALMP in their policy agendas. The PSOE governments in office from 2004 to 2011 expanded the efforts in passive and active policies, introducing activation in the political debate (Moreno and Serrano, 2011). The Great Recession was an opportunity to recalibrate both passive and active policies to the benefit of categories that had not been adequately covered.…”