The post-socialist neoliberal agenda through the prism of Europeanization in social and labour market policy

In post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the European Commission acted as an advocate of social and labour market policy change, promoting an almost ideal-typical neoliberal agenda, whose central tenets were fiscal sustainability in pensions and internal devaluation in wage setting. Related country-specific recommendations and their routine reviews, however, show not only the Commission’s preferences in the two policy fields, but also its perception of the liberal credentials of the targeted countries. Exploiting such a methodological innovation, the article investigates the extent and reasons for the variation in the EU’s recommendations and evaluations. These reveal that whereas in wage setting deregulation and decentralization predominate, CEE pension systems, despite rounds of avantgardist reforms, are replete with inherited path-dependent elements; the divergence possibly explained by the power resources of those interest groups defending the socialist or early transition status quo. The considerable consistency across countries at the level of individual policy fields, coupled with variation in the adherence to neoliberal principles, neatly dovetails with the literature that emphasizes capitalist and/or welfare regime diversity within a circumscribed liberal-oriented range.