Legal uncertainty in social services: A threat to national social protection systems?

The overarching research question in this chapter is whether the influence of EU law on social services is contributing to their ‘sustainability’ or rather to their ‘uncertainty’. With this interrogation in mind, one could review legal literature and check it against views of actors in the social services. The results lead to the conclusion that the very concept of SSGI (Social Services of General Economic Interest) is apparently less clear than existing notions in national legal orders. As EU governance keeps extending its reach, more uncertainty is then presumed to happen in the future and engender fresh problems. These conclusions should be put in the wider context of the characteristics of EU law explored in the book as a key instrument of governance in a domain, social policy, where the EU has very few legal competences. The overall assumption at the start of the project was substantiated: in interaction with national law (and various forms of domestic regulation) EU law brings uncertainty with it, at least for certain groups of Europeans, and more explicitly in certain countries. This uncertainty is mainly of a legal nature. It does not mean, however, that this influence automatically translates into difficulties and threats to existing domestic systems, for the essential reason that, between the making of EU law and its ‘application’ in practice, many complex processes happen, including the possibility of non-application. For this reason, consequences vary according to ideal-types of social protection, to countries, and also, within countries, to groups and individuals.