The article examines current trends in the European social policy in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the global recession. National governments and European institutions responded to the new crisis by abandoning neoliberal approaches in favor of massive financial injections aimed at stimulating the economy and employment. By helping affected businesses, EU countries avoided a sharp rise in unemployment, but that kind of policy led to an increase in budget deficits and public debt. The pandemic shock deepened the integration processes in the EU, facilitated the transfer of new powers to the supranational level. In order to overcome the consequences of the recession, a number of emergency mechanisms have been put in place, based on the solidarity approach. The most ambitious of them, the Next Generation EU recovery instrument, will allow not only to provide support to the affected economies, but also to smooth out the disproportions between the developed North and the stagnating South that have grown over the past decade. Particular attention is paid to the harmonization of European health systems. The turnaround in social policy has led to renewed interest in the European Social Model, strengthening of which has been identified as one of the priorities of Portugal's EU Presidency, which began in January 2021.