Austerity and the Demise of Social Europe: The Baltic Model versus the European Social Model

Abstract

This article draws on the experience of the imposition of radical austerity measures in the Baltic states. It challenges the myth that austerity can be achieved in a socially and economically ‘costless’ manner. Baltic-style austerity has now become a template of ‘successful adjustment’ and a recipe for recovery of the Eurozone. The authors argue contra such ‘myth-making’ that austerity is compromising the longer run sustainability of societies that follow this path, while simultaneously ending prospects of the adhesion of a European ‘Social Model’ in the post-communist periphery. The article is a contribution to an emerging debate in academic and policy circles concerning the viability and future of Europe's ‘Social Model’ in an age of austerity.