Den sociala dimensionen av EU-medborgarskapet
Since the introduction of the European citizenship in the Maastricht treaty, social rights havetaken a back seat to the economic and political elements. Nevertheless, over the past yearssocial issues have been increasingly included on the agenda following the universalrecognition of challenges resulting from further economic integration and demographicchange. The extensive research on European social policy so far tend to focus on initiativesput forward by the European Commission, and offers little to explain the multitude of lines ofreasoning on how far EU social policy should be taken or why it still remains one of the leastdeveloped policy areas. By examining plenary debates in the European Parliament concerningfamily policy, this Bachelor thesis aims to describe the complex of problems connected to afurther development of the social dimension of the European citizenship.The analysis finds that the most imminent problems impeding an expansion of the EU familypolicy lie not only in the many clashes of opinions between advocates of the various existingwelfare models, but also in the conflicts of interests and the different levels of ambitionbetween EU institutions - most notably the Commission and the European Parliament.