ARTIKEL /ARTICLES European Social Policy: An Interim Assessment* WOLFGANG SCHOLZ A Common Social Policy – Europe’s Unwanted Child Since the 1950s, governments, employers, and trade unions have sought to keep social policy outside the European economic and political uni­fication process. For example, during the negotiations on the Treaty of Rome, the French delegation was in favor of including social compe­tences, while it was mainly the German delegation that argued against; both delegations based their arguments on economic reasoning, trying to protect their own economies. The French were motivated by the fact that their welfare state was relatively well developed after World War II, while in Germany the opposite was the case. It is only in the past few years(Treaty of Nice) that some formal common responsibility for lim­ited aspects of social policy and some coordination of national social policies have emerged at eu level(Zapka 2008). These competences are, however, far from being equivalent to common social policies, mainly because of a lack of support from member states. After the events of 1989, all European governments tried to adjust their respective social protection systems 1 to the new situation. The main goal was to react:(i) to significant changes in domestic economic devel­opment, the international division of labor, and Europe’s internal and external trade relations; and(ii) to projected fundamental changes in Europe’s population structures. Reforms in Western and Eastern Europe were subject to two condi­tions. First, governments had to start from different social protection delivery mechanisms, which had evolved historically. It is true that both * Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank his colleagues, especially Krzysztof Hagemejer, head of Policy Development at the Social Security Depart­ment of the ilo , and Diane Vergnaud for commenting on an earlier draft. As usual, any remaining flaws, errors, and lack of clarity are the author’s. The views expressed in this paper must in no way be understood as representing the views of the ilo . 1. For a comprehensive definition of social protection, see eurostat 2008. ipg 3/2009 Scholz, European Social Policy 11