The social dimension of the EU digital agenda: advancing or weakening social rights?

As increasingly acknowledged in the academic literature, the 2014-2024 decade was characterized by a “social turn” in EU policy-making. Having abandoned the mantras of fiscal consolidation and labour deregulation, through “hard” and “soft” law as well as innovative policy instruments, the European Commission actively promoted the strengthening of individual social rights and the capacity of national welfare states to ensure adequate social protection. However, after the 2024 EU elections, the updated programmatic priorities of the Commission (particularly the current simplification agenda) generated doubts about whether the recent expansionary phase for Social Europe will continue. Is the European Commission still pursuing a “market-correcting” policy approach or has it swung back to mainly “market-making” positions? As the number of initiatives in the social policy realm has been reduced, to investigate these trends the paper proposes to focus on the discourse and content of recent EU policies in an adjacent field, namely digital policy. Addressing the digital transition has been a central element of Ursula von der Leyen’s programmatic priorities for both her terms. As an integral part of the Single Market, digital policy has been demonstrated to have important implications for social and labour rights, and offers a new lens to inquire the extent to which the “social turn” is still ongoing and affecting other policy areas. Methodologically, the paper relies on the qualitative analysis of programmatic statements, legislative texts, press releases and other policy documents to investigate the Commission’s changing positions regarding the social dimension of its digital policy. The analysis spans between 2019 and 2025 to cover key policy initiatives, from the directive on platform work to more recent proposals, such as the Digital Omnibus and the e-declaration for posted workers. The paper contributes to two growing strands of scholarship, which have analyzed the recent developments in EU social and digital policy respectively, and proposes a new perspective to consider whether an expansion of EU social policy objectives is still at play.