The EU has traditionally influenced the social and employment policies of Member States through regulation, leaving redistribution to national welfare states. The latter have, however, been gradually weakened by global socioeconomic change and by the expansion of EU market integration. A series of crises over the last 15 years made a bad situation worse: the longue durée erosion of the capacity of European welfare states has morphed into acute social aftershocks, especially in peripheral countries. After the austerity reflex in the early 2010s, the EU introduced new policy instruments with market-correcting rationales that go beyond the regulatory approach. This article revisits the creation and functioning of four of these instruments that represent EU-level capacity-building in the social policy domain: the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, the Youth Guarantee, the Just Transition Fund and SURE (the temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency). We argue that the EU increasingly provides ‘buffer mechanisms’ to support stressed national welfare states in tasks they would otherwise be unable to accomplish, and we identify the political factors that drive the expansion of this ‘buffering’ logic in EU social policy.

中文翻译：

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在困难时期缓冲国家福利国家：欧盟社会政策领域能力建设的政治

欧盟传统上通过监管影响成员国的社会和就业政策，将再分配留给国家福利国家。然而，后者因全球社会经济变化和欧盟市场一体化的扩大而逐渐被削弱。过去15年发生的一系列危机使本已糟糕的情况雪上加霜：欧洲福利国家能力的长期侵蚀已演变成严重的社会余震，尤其是在外围国家。在 2010 年代初期的紧缩反应之后，欧盟推出了新的政策工具，其市场修正的理由超出了监管方法。本文重新审视了代表欧盟层面社会政策领域能力建设的四个工具的创建和运作：欧洲全球化调整基金、青年保障、公正过渡基金和 SURE（缓解失业风险临时支持计划）在紧急情况下）。我们认为，欧盟越来越多地提供“缓冲机制”，以支持面临压力的国家福利国家完成原本无法完成的任务，并且我们确定了推动欧盟社会政策中这种“缓冲”逻辑扩展的政治因素。