What are social and employment policies? And how do they relate to labour market, social services and economic policies? At first sight, this seems to be a simple question to answer. Usually, employment policies refer to the macro-economic efforts of countries to influence labour supply and demand, while labour market policies mostly mean passive and active measures to support unemployed people as well as labour regulations. The term ‘social policies’ commonly refers to social protection and public services that seek to improve people's wellbeing, such as health services. However, in practice, clear distinctions are often difficult to draw. The boundaries between the three policy dimensions are always blurring, and both the process of European integration and the turn towards activation has increased the overlap significantly and made differentiations even harder to make. At the European level, social and employment policies are almost inseparably intertwined and have somehow become a fixed label. The term ‘EU social and employment policies’ now also describes measures and instruments that most probably would have been counted as belonging to labour market policies at the national level. At the same time, there is evidence of an approximation process underway between labour market policies and social policies in several European countries. Flexicurity agendas and a strong supply-side focus have emphasised the combination of passive and active instruments for unemployed people and the importance of linking them to social protection and social services to increase employability.

Against this backdrop, the main purpose of this chapter is to give a broad overview of the dynamics and trends within social, labour market and employment policies in a European multilevel context in the last few decades, and to better specify and illustrate the actual relevance of the subject at hand. First, the chapter provides an overview of what is going on at the European level by discussing the development, organisation and objectives of EU social and employment policies, and particularly of the EU's structural funds. Here, the genuine character of the ESF as an integrated governance tool emerges. Second, the focus is on domestic welfare policies in European welfare states.