The Role of Europeanisation in the Formation of Child Protection Policies

This paper will look at the role of the Europeanization in the formation of child protection policies. What we are interested to analyse is the process through which the EU influences state formation and even more the impact of EU policies on national level in relation to social policy. The EU has long lasting legal and institutional instruments to implement its various policies but in relation to child protection they seem to be unclear and not centralized. This paper will measure the extent to which there is or needs to be a shared and common model of child protection and how would this model intervene with state national and historical trajectories. We will not question the existence of EU mechanisms for policy making but will analyse their impact over the changes in child care in different European member states. In order to do that we will look at Bulgaria and its 10 years child protection reform (2007-2016) – the deinstitutionalization- meant to imply EU norms and switch the center of childcare from public to private realm. How is the decision making process constructed after the EU accession in relation to stakeholders responsible for child protection policies? The paper will deal with this question through empirical research on three different levels of stakeholders – on international (EU+ IO’s), national(BG State government and institutions), regional(municipalities) and local (NGO’s) level.