This book has been a long journey, enriched throughout our whereabouts on the European continent. Our collaboration has its origins in Brussels, where, at the invitation of David Rinaldi, we started working together on how the long-promised idea of “social Europe” could eventually find its place in the EU budget. The mandate we received from the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) was a report primarily targeted at a policy audience. Yet as we started doing the maths, and collecting the evidence, we felt that something bigger was a stake. On presenting our first findings to various stakeholders in Brussels, we received enthusiastic and critical feedback. Then Francesco Corti joined the team, bringing in his expertise on the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). On the initiative of Laszlo Andor, this project culminated with the presentation of our report to Nicolas Schmitt, European commissioner for jobs and socials rights; both of them should also be thanked for their insightful comments.

After this episode, although life first took us on different paths, our joint commitment to developing a bigger argument lingered on. A new opportunity arose with the invitation by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission to present our thinking at a workshop, organized by Giulio Pasi, under the ambitious headline “Policy paradigms, approaches and tools: a comprehensive pathway to make the European social model fit for the future”. The JRC urged us to reflect on the main trends impacting on EU social protection systems, to identify the conceptual relationships between different principles and ideas to define what the European social model is and how it should work, and to provide a conceptual map for a better understanding of the core of welfare systems and the role of EU policies in advancing resilient welfare states. In other words: such wide guidelines provided the perfect excuse for us to give our project the time and dedication it deserved!

It is hard to remember when we realized that our renewed collaboration would end up far exceeding the scope of our presentation and discussion with the JRC to become a book. With the benefit of hindsight, we can recollect several factors that made us pick up our pen again, even after long working days in Rotterdam, Bonn or Florence.