Abstract

This chapter analyses the future of national systems of social insurance in the EU. In Europe, social insurance remains a national responsibility, but the EU’s power to promote the internal market and to develop the social rights connected to EU citizenship challenges the autonomy of the member states. The chapter explains and analyses the tensions that arise in this area when different interests contend. Legal developments in this field raise the question of how the member states’ social security systems should be organized in the future, in conjunction with an expansive body of EU law. The author concludes that the models developed for the future should aim to bridge the gaps in social well-being which currently characterize the EU, without altogether eroding the differences between the welfare models of the different member states. In an increasingly globalized world, the EU’s future lies in community and not in national particularity.