Europe 2020 and the Fight against Poverty – Beyond Competence Clash, Towards ‘Hybrid’ Governance Solutions?

The supranational strategy ‘ E urope 2020’ came along with two main innovations for social policy coordination in the EU : a quantified poverty reduction target and a new governance framework – the ‘ E uropean S emester’. Aiming to assess the effectiveness of the novel strategy in prompting the emergence of a E uropean(‐ized) anti‐poverty arena – thus inherently multilevel and multi‐stakeholder, as well as integrated (across policy sectors) – the article first presents the strategy evolution at the supranational level in 2011–14. Then it analyzes its implementation in five member states – G ermany, I taly, P oland, S weden and the UK – through the first four annual cycles. By directing the analytical focus on processes – rather than outcomes – in order to capture the domestic changes produced by the E urope 2020 anti‐poverty strategy, the article argues that the latter marked significant discontinuity with the S ocial I nclusion O pen M ethod of C oordination. The new strategy increased the political salience of the poverty issue both at the supranational level and in the selected member states, while leading to a ‘competence clash’ between national governments and the EU in G ermany, S weden and the UK . The emergence of such main tension substantially constrained the E urope 2020 potential in these three countries. Differently, in I taly and P oland, the implementation was smoother and the effects along the participation and integration dimensions were more evident. We contend that national policy legacies, the relevance of EU social funds, as well as partisan preferences, help to explain the differential effects of E urope 2020. The article concludes by suggesting that recent decisions at the EU level might eventually bring E uropean anti‐poverty coordination beyond soft‐law towards ‘hybrid’ governance solutions.