A first contribution is a new conceptualization of social rights and EU social citizenship. Social rights are conceptualized as bundles of three types of power resources that enable the right holder to concretely assert his/her right: normative, enforcement and instrumental power resources.
Where the first two types of power resources are traditionally seen as the two main elements of (social) rights, our conception includes also instrumental power resources, i.e. resources which facilitate effective access to benefits. Such resources are meant to assist individuals in overcoming obstacles that can prevent a right‐holder from accessing rights. They may include quality information and awareness raising, user‐friendly application procedures, practical help in filling out forms and engaging in direct contacts with pertinent administrations, guidance, counselling, mentoring, etc.
This conception of social rights first of all draws the attention to the actual access to social rights, a major problem across the EU. Instrumental resources can play a decisive role in improving access to social rights at four critical junctures: awareness about social rights and social benefits, claim making, acquisition of the benefit and problem solving. They are pivotal in shaping the outcomes of social rights in terms of, for example, poverty, employment or work-life balance.
Another advantage of this conception of social rights is that it helps us to picture and understand how, within the EU’s multi‐ level governance structure, social rights increasingly have multiple institutional anchors, with some resources developed at the EU level and others at the national or local levels, and some provided by social partners and other intermediary associations. This has led to the emergence of a new marble cake pattern of social rights’ production.
A second contribution concerns the lack of balance in the implementation of the EPSR. Of the 20 principles proclaimed in the EPSR, four refer to equal opportunities and access to the labour market, six refer to fair working conditions and 10 refer to social protection and inclusion. However, the accent in the implementation of the EPSR has been on the first two areas, where most new measures have been taken. Much less attention has been given to measures related to social protection and inclusion and in particular housing has been neglected.
The EPSR’s Action Plan has as one of its major goals to lift 15 million people out at risk of poverty or social exclusion. It is very unlikely that this goal will be reached as long as social protection and inclusion are not given proper attention.
A third contribution concerns public opinion. On the one hand, EuSocialCit shows that few EU citizens are aware of the social role played by the EU and of the EU social rights and social policies that exist. However, on the other hand, the abstract notion of Social Europe enjoys high levels of public support across the EU, albeit with substantial differences concerning what Social Europe should be about (e.g. harmonizing standards or promoting cross-border mobility) and who should enjoy benefits (all citizens or only those that have worked and contributed to society). Also, there is more support for EU level social investment policies or minimum income policies than for EU unemployment policy and preferences differ between socio-economic groups. Finally, there is quite some skepticism concerning the further development of Social Europe.
Fourthly, empirically, we produced new and innovative analyses on work-life balance, social investment, housing, the causal chains linking resources to outputs and to outcomes, the risk of social vulnerability at the old-age from a life-course perspective.
