This Liber Amicorum celebrates the work of professor Herwig Verschueren. After having worked at the European Commission (DG EMPL) from 1992 to 2004, he became professor of international and European social law at the University of Antwerp and at the Free University of Brussels, where he relentlessly continued to work on strengthening the European Union’s social dimension.
Pioneering Social Europe contains 35 contributions by (former) colleagues, PhD students and friends who reflect on some of the topics that are most dear to Herwig: European integration, intra-EU mobility and international migration, social security coordination, access to social assistance, equal treatment, the internal market and regulatory competition. Together, the contributions do not only provide a rich overview of the latest developments in and limits of the EU’s social acquis, but also offer a wide range of policy recommendations necessary to make Social Europe a lasting reality.