Social Perspectives on Brexit, COVID‐19 and European (Dis)Integration
本文从社会视角分析2020年英国脱欧谈判与新冠疫情如何共同暴露并加剧欧盟内部及成员国间的社会分歧，探讨社会政策在欧洲一体化中的争议性角色。
The on-going trade negotiations between the UK and the EU, in combination with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, created a perfect storm for Europe in 2020. For observers of the social scene, 2020 was a year when the debates, controversies, dilemmas and compromises that had characterized the European project during the previous seven decades moved centre-stage. Latent dissension in the social arena during the Brexit negotiations and COVID-19 pandemic were foreshadowed in earlier conflicts over economic and social trade-offs; the balance between national sovereignty and international solidarity; the distribution of EU and national public health competences; and policies to support inter- and intra-European social cohesion. The social domain played a determining role as the process of implementing the Political Declaration unfolded between 1 February and 31 December 2020, and the two parties compromised on a ‘thin’ deal in the area of trade. Underlying social disunity between member states resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic, with its amplifying effects on existing socio-economic inequalities both between member states and within societies. From the 1950s when the European Economic Community was established, the social dimension was a controversial, though necessary, component of European integration, simultaneously supporting and competing with economic objectives (Hantrais, 2019). Diverse welfare traditions, approaches to social protection, political ideologies and national interests among the founding member states meant that it would be difficult to achieve a level playing field in the social domain. The six founding member states shared a commitment to social progress. They accepted that certain common principles and standards should be adopted in their social protection systems to facilitate the free movement of workers across national borders, and to avoid unfair competition, social dumping and welfare tourism. They disagreed not only about which areas of social policy to include in the EEC Treaty, but also about the distribution of competences between ‘supranational’ institutions and national governments. Social policy was initially identified as an area of shared and supporting competence, with the Commission's role limited to proposing legislation, and monitoring and reporting on the progress made. As the Union expanded to 28 member states, each wave of enlargement brought further culturally determined conceptions of social protection, distinct socio-demographic, economic and policy environments for formulating social policies, and differing financial resources for delivering social services. The latent conflicts inherent in the relationships between economic and social progress and between European institutions and member states, embedded in the 1957 EEC Treaty, resurfaced periodically in later years as the treaty's field of action progressively spilled over into other social and labour market areas (Leibfried and Pierson, 1995). The same issues became increasingly contentious during the UK's membership of the EU, making the initial objectives of achieving centrally regulated European social harmonisation ever more distant. In recognition of the controversial nature of social affairs within the EU's regulatory toolkit, an attempt was made to clarify the distribution of competences between the Commission and EU member states in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU, arts. 2–3). Public health had been given its own clear, albeit limited, legal basis in the Maastricht Treaty (art. 129). TFEU article 168 unambiguously established the distribution of competences specifically in the area of public health. Together the treaties reaffirmed the supportive, complementary or supplementary roles that the EU should play during the pandemic through its monitoring, coordinating, promotional and public health protection activities, while acknowledging that member states should remain responsible for defining, organising and delivering health services and medical care. The launch of Jean-Claude Juncker's European Pillar on Social Rights in 2017 coincided fortuitously, if not opportunistically, with the UK's decision to leave the EU. The aim of the Pillar was to improve the lives of European citizens by advocating a more pro-active approach to future European social policy. Recognizing that not all member states would want, or be in a position, to pursue his objectives at the same pace, Juncker sought to engineer a compromise between champions of the social dimension and its critics. His two-speed social Europe, with the eurozone countries constituting the core group, was designed to respect cultural differences and national specificities in the social domain, in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity while ensuring greater involvement of civil society and the social partners. Paradoxically, by losing sight of the single-track regulatory harmonised European social union of Delors' vision in the 1990s, the Pillar set the parameters for a two-speed, or differentially integrated, social Europe post-Brexit, which the UK had long been advocating and practising through its opt-outs. EU27 reactions to Juncker's proposals provided further evidence of the fragility of social union, even without the UK (European Economic and Social Committee, 2017). They cast doubt on the likelihood that the UK's withdrawal would substantially alter the nature of the contribution of social policy to European integration in the short or longer term. Rather, they could be seen as presaging the tensions and recriminations that would simultaneously characterize the acrimonious relationships between the EU and the UK during the Brexit negotiations, and between the Commission and EU27 member states during the pandemic in 2020. Just as the provisions of the EEC and EU Treaties had led inexorably to spillover, the field was left open, post-Brexit, for ‘mission and scope creep’ (Green, 2016). Social affairs had always been controversial at EU level and would become even more so in the pandemic's management toolkit. The provisions made in the treaties for the distribution of competences between EU institutions and member states had laid the ground rules for the stalemate that ensued when the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration were being negotiated. Legislation on workers' rights, freedom of movement and state aid were identified at the outset as areas of potential disagreement between the UK and EU institutions in negotiating the Brexit settlement. Boris Johnson's version of the Withdrawal Agreement expunged Theresa May's conciliatory provisions for non-regression of labour and social standards. The reference to ‘building on the level playing field arrangements’ provided for in May's draft Withdrawal Agreement (HM Government, 2018, §79) was replaced by a statement indicating that ‘the Parties should uphold the common high standards applicable in the Union and the United Kingdom at the end of the transition period’ (HM Government, 2019, §77). The implication was that any truce agreed in the Political Declaration would be of short duration. In February 2020, the EU and UK embarked on the next phase of negotiations − the 11-month transition or implementation period – as mapped out succinctly in the Political Declaration accompanying the Withdrawal Agreement. Neither party anticipated the global threat to public health that would be posed by the COVID-19 pandemic nor its longer-term impact on EU and UK social policy. During the year, public health, privacy and data protection, together with state support for industry, workers and their families, assumed a prominent position among the issues to be addressed, making it difficult to untangle the negative effects of Brexit and the pandemic not only for the political economy but also for social life. In early 2020, the EU was recovering from the economic and immigration crises of the first two decades of the 21st century. The incoming president of the European Commission, Ursula von de Leyen, had placed the European Green Deal and digital society at the top of her political agenda (see Eckert, 2021 in this issue). The UK Conservative government with its recently acquired substantial parliamentary majority was prematurely celebrating having ‘got Brexit done’ by the deadline of 31 January 2020 (Hantrais, 2020). The negotiations over the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) were reminiscent of debates in earlier years about the extent to which European integration depended on the balance between economic and social integration to ensure a level playing field and fair competition (see Usherwood, 2021 in this issue). Perennial issues about living and working conditions, access to employment and social protection for (mobile) workers and their families, equivalence of qualifications and educational exchanges were blocking progress, since they called into question the common rights and standards – acquis communautaire − that member states had been required to transpose into their national legislation as a condition of membership. In a speech in London on 8 January, Von der Leyen (2020) laid down the EU's red lines: no trade deal without a level playing field; no Brexit deal unless the four freedoms (of movement, goods, persons, services and capital) were respected; and no state aid to prop up failing industries. In a written statement to parliament on EU−UK relations issued on 3 February 2020, Johnson (2020) made explicit his own red lines: the UK government would not countenance ‘any regulatory alignment, any jurisdiction for the CJEU over the UK's laws, or any supranational control in any area, including the UK's borders and immigration policy’. By subordinating social policy issues to market exigencies and wider political concerns, the vexed issues of state aid and the level playing field threatened to derail the negotiations, portending a hard Brexit or no-deal. Although EU27 member states continued to maintain a united front under the relentless stewardship of Michel Barnier, at the European Council's meeting on 21–2 February 2020, the heads of state or government failed to reach agreement over the long-term budget for 2021–27, providing renewed evidence of underlying divisions (Boucart, 2020). The ‘frugal’ member states − Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (later the ‘frugal four’ when Finland and Germany changed their approach) − advocated capping the budget at 1 per cent of EU gross domestic product and focusing on more ‘modern’ (economic) policy priorities. By contrast, the 17 ‘friends of cohesion’ group of countries − essentially the southern, central and eastern European member states − sought reassurances that they would not be left on the periphery, as implied in Juncker's proposal for the European Pillar of Social Rights (subsequently Macron's concentric circles). They advocated continuing support for cohesion policy if the EU wanted to achieve greater economic and social convergence by levelling up across member states. Within the friends of cohesion group, Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the four Central and East European countries, previously known as the Visegrád Group, adopted a ‘semi-frugal’ position in the 2021–27 European budget discussions (Ehl, 2020). They had been less affected by COVID-19 than the southern European member states during the first wave of the pandemic and wanted to avoid jeopardising their cohesion status and access to EU funds, since their economies had been severely affected by their early and stringent lockdown. On 25 February, the Council of the European Union (2020, §10) issued directives for negotiating a new partnership with the UK; they reaffirmed that the EU was seeking ‘a level playing field that will stand the test of time’ and that, as a non-Schengen third country, the UK would not be subject to the same obligations. But nor would it enjoy the same benefits. In addition to social and employment standards, the areas targeted encompassed public health, social services and education, with provision to include ‘additional areas or to lay down higher standards over time’ (Council of the European Union, 2020, §95). The Brexit negotiations stalled as Barnier contracted COVID-19 on 19 March and then Johnson on 27 March. With Europe at the epicentre of the pandemic, Brexit was eclipsed, although the 31 December 2020 deadline for closing the deal was not postponed. At EU and national levels, attention focused on measures to control the spread of the virus and mitigate economic damage. The UK did not join the EU-level effort to and in 2020, being to so 2020). did the UK in the European Commission's for to mitigate in an on having by then its own and other measures to all and the UK was its by to state aid on an to support of the and rights to within their in to achieve public policy objectives as the protection and of public health, social public education, the including public social or protection, privacy and data protection and the and protection of cultural while to improve their high of 2020, of the in the to social were in a on Social 2020). of the stringent and EEC legislation − and on the of social systems − had been even the UK the European to support free movement of and the level playing national in this The of social as over the together with that had been by and between countries including the for of for and differences in national were subject to national the of approaches and financial resources to this area of social policy. During the transition EU continued to to the even though it was no longer at the in the withdrawal the government had EU EU legislation legislation implementing or to EU as the UK's EU legislation applicable in the UK without implementing legislation, as the EU's and other rights and principles in EU that had in the for the not to be on of as provided for in the to the between and the of known to during of 2018, The Brexit was no of the of Brexit for European social integration debates among and about the for more in EU policy and implementation 2019). For EU Brexit was to the threat of the UK its blocking and also to the of to social union continued to that European social union would be by the to pursue a more EU social policy to the and accompanying with European and 2020). For the as by the leave sovereignty in the of parliamentary control over social affairs would be and the UK would no longer be by the level playing field in the social domain. The impact of Brexit on UK social legislation at the end of the transition period to be the deal agreed on December provided for the EU to the UK if it was to the by its employment and social standards to an unfair In other social areas it was that the UK would not be to as an to member states that with EU standards would be with Public health was not given in the EEC Treaty since attention focused on health and at to the distribution of competences in the area of public health, in the Maastricht Treaty in and in the Treaty, had the ground for the pandemic that the EU in 2020. that membership of the European Council on heads of state or government a and for at EU and national levels, on proposals and evidence by the Commission in the area of public health meant that, the Commission and national were with the of a balance between their and European institutions were with the of achieving a between economic and social without losing sight of their political On March 2020, EU heads of state or government the as a policy (see and 2021 in this a and both within the EU and between the social and economic of the the in the national disagreed over to the pandemic without to economic and social life. COVID-19 latent both between and within that had been during the Brexit EU27 as national interests the European Commission's to its monitoring and As public health to the top of the EU's the pandemic the social policy had a contentious the of the European also the UK's did not the any to (Hantrais, 2020). With the Commission to the of the and the European Council to on a initially national at and with of and of the core for EU membership − free movement of citizens − on which the EU had in the Brexit negotiations − was the first red to be for from by 2020 member states had the and borders to the spread of the the UK and both non-Schengen countries, their borders of its of EU on March the Commission its own proposals on the of non-Schengen EU countries, as as the were to on from countries in the that this would within the EU. 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The of the controversies, dilemmas and compromises that had characterized the social dimension of the European project resurfaced in 2020, into question the between member states and European Brexit then the pandemic the underlying EU control over the social domain as as the within societies. 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The resources made at national and European to support economies it was they failed to embedded inequalities and 2020, In the of and as the pandemic its year, evidence was of an among European that social and economic policies were They were that in health as a public was a global on international a and of policy to and ensure and social cohesion