An Eco-Social Union in the Making: European Myth, Rhetorical Promise, or Irreversible Reality?

This paper traces how a European socio-ecological policy framework has emerged to enable the making of an Eco-Social Union (ESU)—conceived as a supportive supranational environment providing steering, guidance, and support to the Union’s national welfare states, while safeguarding national diversity. By adopting a synoptic approach—examining objectives, policy instruments, and funding as an integrated whole—we show that the process is more advanced than is generally assumed. Tracing its emergence from the Union’s founding to recent crises, we highlight (i) the articulation of increasingly freestanding social objectives—centred on social inclusion and now increasingly intertwined with ecological goals; (ii) the layering of first- and second-order, input- and outcome-oriented governance; (iii) the rising role of EU funding in coupling resources to social and ecological aims and fostering solidarity among the Member States; and (iv) the growing interconnections among these elements. Without foreclosing ideational interpretations, we contend that the process is taking shape out of functional necessity—enabling national welfare states, as active actors in the process, to protect themselves against the negative spillovers of integration and to support reform needs, not least in response to the climate crisis; enabling the Union to safeguard its cohesion; serving as a productive factor for the functioning of the single market; and making the green transition possible. The paper argues that goal-oriented funding that takes into account differential national needs may set in motion a virtuous cycle that renders the ESU increasingly irreversible: interstate solidarity creates the necessity for common binding social and environmental standards while the pursuit of common objectives raises the need for interstate solidarity as evidenced by the Social Climate Fund.