For quite some time now, the EU Member States have tried to mold the EU into a socially more acceptable form. This has largely remained big words and solemn declarations, but the Lisbon Treaty establishes the EU as a social market economy.

The recent financial and economic crisis had particularly severe employment and welfare implications for newly flexible labour markets. Only a coherent approach to the integration of markets and market-correcting policies may in the future prevent uncoordinated social and employment policies from endangering the political sustainability of economic integration, writes the author of this analysis.