La governance economica nella strategia Europa 2020: una socializzazione del semestre europeo contro ogni previsione?

This article analyzes how EU social objectives and policy coordination have been integrated into the Union’s emerging post-crisis architecture of economic governance.  The authors argue that, since 2011, there has been a partial but progressive ‘socialization’ of the ‘European Semester’ of policy coordination, in terms of an increasing emphasis on social objectives and targets in the EU’s priorities and country-specific recommendations; an intensification of social monitoring, multilateral surveillance, and peer review; and an enhanced role for social and employment actors. This can be understood not only as EU institutions’ response to rising social and political discontent among European citizens with the consequences of post-crisis austerity policies, but also as a product of reflexive learning and creative adaptation on the part of social and employment actors: another form of ‘socialization’.