To what extent has Europe adopted a single social model?

The first 200 words of this essay...

To what extent has Europe adopted a single social model?

The European Social Model is a vision of society that combines sustainable economic growth with ever-improving living and working conditions. This implies full employment, good quality jobs, equal opportunities, social protection for all, social inclusion, and involving citizens in the decisions that affect them.

Economic issues have dominated the life and work of the European Union. Beginning with the experiment in pooling coal and steel production, and moving through customs union, the common agricultural policy (CAP), exchange rate stability, the single market, and the single currency, the EU agenda had been driven in large part by matters involving trade, tariffs, markets, currencies, competition, and labour mobility. It has only been relatively recently that the agenda of integration had broadened to include a wider variety of policy issues, from social affairs to the environment. Social policy deals mainly with questions related to employment, or the rights, opportunities, and benefits provided to potential, actual, or former workers.

By 1985 the European Council was ready to take a further step forward. This was movement towards the creation of a single market. The dream was to promote freedom of access and