The European Welfare-State Perspective The European Union is an ambitious moderni­zation programme which the Western Euro­pean countries prescribed for themselves once they understood that only cooperation could unleash the synergistic energies needed to meet today's diverse challenges. The goal is to assure a place for Europe ­politically, economically and technologically ­in a complex world which is dependent on global cooperation, yet torn by sharp contra­dictions. The means to accomplish this are to be found in the most intelligent possible com­bination of elements drawn from the European capacity to make cultural diversity work to the advantage of all. Western Europe has become a successful laboratory for the development of interdependencies. On a voluntary basis and through democratic pluralism it has evolved into a field of force for supranational cooper­ation. But certain wide-spread moods and atti­tudes clearly show how hard it is to mentally abandon a national framework which no longer has a place in current political, econ­omic and scientific realities. It is obvious that this self-prescribed moderni­zation programme has no trade union counter­part. A trade union policy vis-a-vis Europe is still in embryonic form. There is significant lagging behind in the understanding and con­sciousness among union members and the trade union apparatuses are dragging their feet with respect to ideas and organization within the union apparatus. Is it still possible to eliminate the deficiencies of the trade unions' policy on Europe, defi­ciencies which can be traced to a tardy and merely reactive adjustment, ie., to a lack of flexibility with regard to substance and organ­ization? In their efforts to eliminate this lag, the trade unions can find assistance in their great Euro­pean traditions. The trade union workers movement saw in a united Europe- that is to say, in opposition to a Europe marked by the warring rivalries of authoritarian nation states and their colonial-fascistic outgrowths ­a socio-political model which corresponded to the goals of democracy, peace and solidarity championed by trade union internationalism. The events of the twentieth century show how much history has judged the unions to be right. Readopting the earlier democratic, Euro­pean tradition could help the trade unions overcome the anti-European attitudes curren­tly fashionable in their ranks. Social democracy is the historical inheritance which the unions have bequeathed contem­porary Europe. Civil rights and co-determina­tion rights for the workforce, freely negotiated labour contracts and social protection in case of unemployment, illness and old age con­stitute the image of modem Europe; an image which is unmatched elsewhere in the world. Building on this success, specifically by push­ing forward the modernization of the welfare state structures in Western Europe and by struggling for the establishment of social democracy in the Eastern part of the continent could be seized as the political perspective for European integration which sets the unions on the offensive and allows them to become the social architects of Europe. Clearly, the concept of Europe as a sphere of social democracy presupposes the creation of trade union Euro-forces. The Continuation of the European Project of the Modern Age Western European integration, which has had its center of gravity in the Europe of the EC, is the most important(perhaps the only import­ant) policy innovation of the postwar era. The idea of confronting nationalist tendencies with cross border integration has made part­ners out of what were once enemy countries. The pluralistic democracy of Western Europe has created an"unparalleled sphere of pros­perity"(Willy Brandt). Compared with other areas of the world,(Western) Europe is also a sphere of unparalleled stability with regard to politics, economics and social issues:"Pros­perity and peace through an irreversible pro­cess of integration"(Engholm) are the results of the European conception of success. 3