Abstract

The Europe 2020 Strategy was a communication from the Commission pointing out the grave danger of an economic recession in Europe. It also served as a roadmap for a prosperous Europe in the future based on smart, sustainable and socially inclusive growth. The economic recession had challenged years of economic and social developments, and Europe 2020 addressed how it was time for European actors to set out countermeasures as one coherent European Union (EU). This chapter discusses the Europe 2020 Strategy implications of building a European social market economic model for the 21st century. The overall question is the following: What does a European social market economy model mean and what are the historical, political entrepreneurial visions behind such a model? It is argued that the European project has embedded an international, unique kind of European political entrepreneurship in which Europe has been founded on norms and values providing for a European liberal order of international collaboration, common institutions, democratic governance and a social market economy.