Published in S. Kuhnle (ed.), Survival of the European welfare state, pp. 146-165, London: Routledge, 2000.In Spain, welfare has historically incorporated some of the most characteristic features of the continental 'conservative corporatist' model of social policy (Esping-Andersen, 1990). In the last two decades, an incrementalist pattern has developed concerning welfare services and income policies alongside some inherited corporatist practices --despotic and democratic-- from both late Francoism and the transitional period to democracy (1976-79), respectively. Spain has reconstructed a medium-size system of social protection as compared to the countries of the European Union. At present the Spanish Welfare State represents a fundamental structure for both social reproduction and political legitimisation. Since its accession to the European Community (1986), Spain has followed a pattern of convergence in welfare of a three-fold nature: a universalisation of social entitlements (education, health, pensions); a confluence of welfare spending to the median of its European partners; and a diversification in the provision of social services by private and subsidised organisations. Thus, the Spanish Welfare State can be labelled as a via media with respect to other existing welfare systems (Moreno & Sarasa, 1992, 1993). Indeed, the welfare system in Spain incorporates elements of both Bismarckian and Beveridgean traditions, or rather between bread-winner 'continental' and citizenship-centred 'liberal' models. It also represents a middle way of de-commodification and gendering, and of universal and means-tested access to services and benefits. Policies carried out according to targeting criteria have had a 'ripple effect' upon worse-off categories expanding the 'grey zones' between both social insurance and welfare assistance realms. In Spain, liberalisation in the provision of welfare services is noticeable in a certain extension of free-market morals and, thus, in the proliferation of 'non-profit' -but characteristically subsidised-NGOs, and the reinforcement of the process of welfare privatisation. However, a trend away from 'residualism' and a parallel growth of institutional 'stateness', or state penetration of the welfare sphere (Flora, 1986/87; Kuhnle, 1997), can be also detected. In fact some reforms of universalisation (education, health pensions) have been put into effect in recent years encompassing some basic entitlements with traditional income related programmes.Peer reviewed