Mats Persson is Research Director at Open Europe.
An argument heard in some corners is that employment and social policy is the “wrong battle” for an incoming Conservative government looking to bring back powers from the EU. EU social legislation is stuck in neutral, the argument goes, and picking a fight on these laws would see David Cameron waste valuable political capital that he can better spend elsewhere.
True, the Barroso Commission has been less active than its predecessors in pushing through employment legislation, and EU enlargement has to some extent stilled the appetite for new continental-style labour laws.
But to argue that EU social policy has died a quiet death is just wrong.
First, existing EU social and employment laws are having a massive impact on the UK economy. A recent study by Open Europe, based on over 2,000 of the Government’s own Impact Assessments, estimated that regulations introduced in the UK between 1998 and 2008 have cost the British economy £148.2 billion. Of this, £36.7 billion, or 25 percent, stems from EU social laws alone.
Looking ahead and using the same methodology, EU social legislation will cost the UK about £71 billion between 2010 and 2020, even in the unlikely event that no new laws are introduced in that time. In terms of impact on the British economy, EU social legislation is therefore exactly the right place to start.
Social policy also continues to evolve in the EU courts. The scope of the Working Time Directive has been extended no less than eight times by the European Court of Justice.
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