<p>The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy Report</p><p>This paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.</p><p>The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them. Other key issues include how Sweden defines and plans to address the problem of social exclusion domestically.</p><p>The Lisbon Strategy and the Social Policy Agenda of the EU underline the importance of civil trust. Accordingly, I have included Bo Rothstein's theory of social trust, which demonstrates that open dialogue with citizens and written declarations of cooperation in the EU are not enough. Actions that instil trust and impartial universal institutions are also required for the European project to work. Thus, civil trust in the EU requires the existence of such institutions.</p><p> </p>

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy Report This paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy. The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them. Other key issues include how Sweden defines and plans to address the problem of social exclusion domestically. The Lisbon Strategy and the Social Policy Agenda of the EU underline the importance of civil trust. Accordingly, I have included Bo Rothstein's theory of social trust, which demonstrates that open dialogue with citizens and written declarations of cooperation in the EU are not enough. Actions that instil trust and impartial universal institutions are also required for the European project to work. Thus, civil trust in the EU requires the existence of such institutions.