This book gives an introduction to the social security systems of the fifteen member states of the European Union.

This book investigates the paradox of rich countries of Western Europe, who have high levels of poverty whilst proclaiming its eradication as one of the primary social and economic goals. It looks at how policies often do not achieve their goals, why countries need mechanisms to reduce wage inequality and why they choose to provide universal benefits instead of systems of selective benefits targeted at the poor. Along with cross-countries comparisons, the volume also presents analysis of the minimum income in France, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, and Greece.

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The aim of this book is to examine how EU law relates to and impacts on the national social security systems of the Member States. It asks three key questions. Firstly, it looks at how the internal market and its developments have eroded Member States' sovereignty over their social security systems, despite the fact that the EU has limited competence in the field. It then explores, secondly, how the Union Citizenship and, thirdly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights has affected the coordination of these regimes.

In the last few decades, attention for the social protection of self-employed people in Europe has grown. The countries that are probably most concerned with the social protection for self-employed persons are the Central and Eastern European states. At the end of the twentieth century, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, they were confronted with rising entrepreneurship. Self-employed entrepreneurship was and still is one of the key elements in the transformation of their guided economy to a free market economy. The essential question for many policymakers of Central and Eastern European states is, consequently, to what extent social protection should have a place in this free economy. This publication gives an overview of the existing social security systems for self-employed people in those states in Central and Eastern Europe with which the EU has started negotiations for a possible entry. More specifically, it concerns Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. For each state it is checked for which risks the self-employed person is socially insured and how the social security systems are structured. Moreover, the author investigates the specific problems, which the states have to deal with when developing a social security protection for the self-employed. After the description of the national systems, the final chapter will offer a brief comparative analysis. The aim of this analysis is to present the key points in the description of the systems for self-employed persons in Central and Eastern Europe. This chapter will equally be used to make the link with the EU countries. Contributions to this book are made by: A. Bubnov- S ¡ koberne, I.C. Dragan, J. Hajdú, J. Hartl, L. Leppik, T. Medaiskis, M. Pliszkiewicz, I. Radicová, D. Sacheva-Atanasova, G. Strban and V. Zagorskis.

"The European Union is on the threshold of an important institutional transformation, as thirteen states are applying for membership: ten of them, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, will become a member by May 1st, 2004; two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, will follow some time later and Turkey is also given the perspective of accession in a later stage. Fears are often expressed as to the social impact the adhesion of these states may have upon both the European Union's social security policy and the social security systems of these states. We give a presentation of the social security systems of the applicant states in the same format as the one we used for our earlier descriptions of the national social security systems of the present fifteen member states (Nr. 1 of this Social Europe Series). This publication gives the reader an introduction into the social security systems of the thirteen applicant states. It offers the social security expert with some comparative experience the opportunity to position his/her knowledge of (aspects of) foreign social security systems within the broad national context of these systems; for others, this introduction will simplify first ventures into the field of comparative social security law. The publication also facilitates the broad comparison of the national systems, by describing them according to a uniform structure. For each country, the following aspects are examined: the concept and sources of social security law; the administrative organisation; the personal scope of application; the social risks and benefits (subdivided into old age, survivorship, incapacity for work, unemployment, health care and care, family and need); the way in which social security is financed and the judicial protection. By giving a systematised and short overview of all systems in the European Union, the book finally meets a need of many in and outside Europe."--cover.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the impact of the crisis and austerity policies on all elements of the European Social Model. This book assesses the situation in each individual EU member state on the basi